Group travelers, be they families, friends, golf buddies, fishing pals, scrapbookers, little leaguers or an endless parade of other special interests, often have something in common when they try to hit the road together: They fail.
In fact, as many as 63% of such groups find problems almost from the moment they decide that a group trip sounds like a good idea, according to a recent survey by I'mIn, the company that operates the group travel Web site www.imin.com.
Would-be group travelers find they must juggle multiple schedules, book blocks of rooms, find restaurants to accommodate multiple tables and budget with a sensitivity to the financial limits of everyone in the group. Such challenges cause many to just drop their grand idea.
Those same challenges inspired Brian Harrington, co-founder and president of I'mIn, to create a new online service. He and his partner, Josh Lesnick, have established a network of 30,000 well-educated, demographically desirable travelers who are using the site to plan, organize and find group trips to take.
Because of a unique relationship that Harrington and Lesnick have also built with hotels, transportation providers, inns, boutique businesses and tour groups, they have also started offering what they say is a unique product: potential itineraries that suppliers themselves create as a marketing tool to reach out to those who are looking for some road not yet taken.
Harrington recently told Travel Weekly that while travel agents had traditionally represented the knowledge base for workable group trips that include favorite activities, new locations and facilities for a group's central focus, I'mIn was muscling its way into that institutional knowledge with the help of suppliers.
The site's work, he said, amounts to a new marketing platform in a space that is becoming more crowded and "is generating a lot of energy and a lot of buzz."
That buzz has been helped by some recent data from Forrester Research showing that 46% of travelers fall into the group-travel category, accounting for 62 million travelers a year. Such groups tend to fall into the range of five to 20 people, and they average eight to 10 members, Harrington said.
They also represent a multibillion-dollar market that Harrington said was growing rapidly.
"We offer unique trip ideas that groups of friends and families can engage and use as a catalyst to begin planning a trip," Harrington said. "We offer group collaboration tools so that a group of friends or a large family or even multiple families can create a free private planning page on our site."
Key to that tool is a Web page for each member where documents on the proposed trip, communications tools and other planning devices can be accessed by each authorized member of the group. In the process, the site has created a market easily tapped with ideas by suppliers.
"We've maintained a focus on helping travel suppliers, hotels, inns, bed-and-breakfasts, travel agents, convention and visitors' bureaus, tour operators and the like, and we've built an interesting platform for them to market and promote trip ideas and itineraries that are well-thought-out experiences," he said. "You may have a small inn promoting a girlfriends' getaway on a weekend, or a large hotel in Las Vegas advertising a guys' bachelor party. ... They are all interested in attracting these small leisure groups of five to 20, which are kind of the sweet spot."
Significantly, their focus employs a two-pillared approach, strengthening opportunities for both consumers and travel suppliers. What Harrington and company have tagged their "Partner Network" allows suppliers ranging from Starwood to a local fishing guide to create itineraries that link site members to trip ideas.
When members or the general public use the site to shop for trips, the links connect them directly to the suppliers who have created those trips to foster a direct relationship with the customer and make sales. One result is innovative trip alternatives in both popular and less-known locations, which in turn increases competition in the group travel market.
The site even helps smaller travel suppliers to use the company's technology to build a Web presence.
I'mIn works on a pay-per-click advertising basis, drawing revenue when users follow links to supplier options.
"We have created a network where our advertisers are able to invite other local partners to create a trip idea together," Harrington said. "This facilitates building on that travel opportunity system among local providers, and that is good for them all."
To contact reporter Dan Luzadder, send e-mail to [email protected].