TravelMuse.com, which blends magazine-style travel content with trip planning, social networking and booking tools, is moving deeper into the social network aspects of its business with enhancements to its travel collaboration services.
The company said this month that it had beefed up its ability to link friends or those planning group travel on its site and made it easier to share information on trip research, communicate past travel experiences and open access to travel journals posted on TravelMuse.
Kevin Fliess, founder of the California-based company, said the notion of social networking opportunities between travelers was continuing to gain traction among users of services such as MySpace and Facebook.
He said that the networking enhancements at TravelMuse come as travel experiences are becoming an ever-larger portion of social networking activity on the Web.
"You can create a network of friends on TravelMuse and invite them to participate in trip planning, which was something that you were not able to do before," Fliess said of the enhancements.
"With that network, you can see the trips your friends are planning or have taken, and reuse their research or plan using their experiences."
User feedback
The TravelMuse site launched in June, but it has remained in beta testing, Fliess said, because users have been extremely active in making suggestions on how the site should develop.
It is one of a number of websites that have altered course from traditional, destination-based travel search and moved toward helping travelers find the kind of experiences they are looking for before they pick a destination.
Travelocity handles bookings for the company through a link to its World Choice subsidiary.
Travelers using the site can book anywhere, however, and download flight and hotel information and other itinerary items from those booking sites directly into a TravelMuse trip planning page.
TravelMuse has been busy over the past few months creating its own extended network, as well, signing partnership agreements in August to place a TravelMuse widget on other travel-related websites to direct visitors to TravelMuse.
The site publishes editorial content weekly on specific destinations as part of its Inspiration Finder service.
In response to user feedback, Fliess said, it recently started archiving its weekly editorial "cover" content to enable users to go back to past issues for on-site research on potential destinations.
Fliess said TravelMuse planned to invest in expanded travel editorial content, was looking at marketing opportunities to baby boomers who are retiring and would continue to pursue enhancements of its social networking capabilities.
"We will continue to integrate TravelMuse with existing social networks," Fliess said. "We think that is very important for our future."