Ask HN: Startup Idea - Outsource Travel planning ?

I had some thoughts on this during the early days of the web, recognizing that the travel agent business was in jeopardy, i thought they would 'refactor' themselves as the travel experts for their area. Apparently, not the case.

There are lots of sites going after the market much like Travelmuse/tripwolf. Have you tried planeteye or dopplr? I'm not sure if they are any better.

In many ways, I think these sites are trying to do what you describe, though I don't think anybody has cracked it yet. Of course tripadvisor is another good source which I have relied on from time to time.

Hope you had a great time in BC, and made it up to my hometown of Whistler too.

Umm... Like a travel agent? Anyone under 30 might not have ever had to use one. I don't even know how people made travel plans at all without an agent before all these travel sites existed. I think you had to show up at the ticket counter at the airport or something to buy a ticket. The alternative was to go to an agent's office where they were hooked into some system that let them sell you all kinds of tickets. I never had to deal with that mess, but my parents still use agents from time to time.

I agree that travel planning is a drag, but there are a couple reasons people hardly use agents anymore. They're expensive and most travelers want things fast and cheap. It's how airlines like Spirit (who I like to refer to as the "Greyhound of the Skies") manage to stay in business.

You've got your work cut out for you. There's already a solution to this problem. The only real opening you've got is the ability to provide something comparable at a very low cost.

Have you looked into Rearden Commerce? It is popular with corporate clients.

http://www.reardencommerce.com/products/overviews/travel.php

Another option for this idea, instead of outsourcing it, is to create essetially the "last.fm" of travel...collect information from people about their trips (where they stayed, how they got there, where they visited) and then when people want to plan new trips, you can intelligently recommend things using the collected data as a reference.

The hard part would be collecting that initial data. Maybe a Facebook App would encourage people to participate.

I picture the trip planning screen being a set of sliders and drop downs. Put in where you're starting from, where you're going, how much you want to spend, and then the site does all the work.

The travel agent has existed since at least 1841

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cook

For simple trips people are choosing not to pay the overhead for their personal travel now that you can shop around easily yourself. The agent is still pretty good for package holidays, though.

Companies like American Express offer corporate travel services. My last job had this service: one could call or email them from the back of the cab between meetings and they'd call back in 30 minutes with a whole itinerary, with flights, car and hotel. Needless to say, this is very expensive, but probably cheaper than having dedicated personnel at your company.

So the optimize-for-cheap and optimize-for-easy markets are probably covered. Perhaps there is a gap in between, but you'll be competing with some established companies from either side.