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Content Tagged with tourism + travel

As a geographer, I have a bias toward mapping applications that relate to Web 2.0 and Travel 2.0. So even though I get a lot of links to Travel 2.0 websites in my inbox, and even though I really should be reading student term papers right now, I did mention this new site (still in beta), in part because of its simplicity and mostly because of it potential usefulness for travelers in the US.

HappyMappy.com is a map of tourist attractions in the US. (Sorry, rest of the world.) Attractions include: "history, arts, recreation, nature, science, parks, sports, theater, concerts, nightlife & activities." It is basically a mash-up of Google Maps and Yahoo! Local, with some added information and functionality. At each zoom level HappyMappy will show up to 100 of the most popular attractions. It is unclear just how popularity is determined.

Checking the attractions around Flagstaff, Arizona, I found the results to be quite comprehensive, and there were a couple of items listed that I was personally not aware of. It was not perfect, however, as it included a couple of motels (not really tourist attractions) and places on the Northern Arizona University campus that I thought were a bit questionable. For example, the Du Bois Center is tagged with: Concert Entertainment Live Entertainment Live Music Music Nightlife Venue. However, it is mostly a food outlet for students and a conference center with meeting rooms and an auditorium that may, on a very infrequent occasion, have some evening event that is open to the public. In addition, as student recreation center is listed that is not open to the public.

In addition, downtown Flagstaff, especially on Route 66 (US Highway 89/180), has a lot of tourist arts/gifts/souvenir shops, but only a couple are listed. And I wonder how well they will be able to keep this information current given the relatively high business turnover in this sector. Finally, urban districts and scenic landscapes are attractions, as well. But these do not show up on the HappyMappy maps. While it might be possible to identify downtown Flagstaff as a tourism hot spot, based on the large number of pin points there, the historic hotels along Route 66 as not so well identifiable.

Also, I was not able to save my points of interest and maps either in Firefox 3 (beta) or on IE 7 after I registered on the site. I would think this kind of problem would be mostly resolved in a beta release, but I guess not this time.

HappyMappy reminds me of VeniVidiWiki.eu - which is a pin map showing links to tourist attractions around the world, but which also emphasizes videos and photos more, and text descriptions of the attractions less than does HappyMappy. VeniVidiWiki also allows users to add additional sites to their database, though there is no social networking related to that. And there is also Simpatigo.com which links the attractions to an itinerary route -- though that makes it more complicated, as well. I covered VeniVidiWiki.eu before here and Simpatigo.com before here.

A friend of mine, Tim Winter, sent me a link to his new website about travel, tourism and heritage in Cambodia, with an emphasis on Angkor Wat http://www.postconflictheritage.com>. The website is essentially intended to support and expand upon his recent book on the same topic, which can be found on the website. The site also includes links to recent news stories related to tourism and heritage issues in Cambodia.

While a lot of Web 2.0 tends to focus on practical tools for organizing trips and finding the best deals from insiders. At best, they provide users with information on must see attractions.

However, tourists are part of the tourism economy -- which is generally considered the largest part of the global service economy, and has huge impacts on host destinations. Few tourists fully understand their role in this tourism economy, and how they are shaping and changing the destinations that they visit.

Website like this one on Cambodia help to bridge this gap between being a leisure tourist and an aware traveler. Good job, Tim!

xml schemas for diff types of travelling

Farecast is now available to for 75 cities! The website that predicts the best air fare prices on a given day based on historical data was previously only available for Boston and Seattle.

Farecast is basically an airline fare search engine. I am not sure just how good it is at that, and suggest that you compare it to your current favorites before you buy anything. What Farecast offers that is unique is a tool that tries to predict when the lowest prices can be found between any two cities. Unfortunately it appears that this tool only works for flights between the 75 cities that are in its database. I could not get a price on a flight between Phoenix and Fairbanks, for example, because Fairbanks is not in its database.

However, this is a big move up from the original two cities that previously made the site a curiosity, but not very useful. The intend to continue to grow the database, and I will look forward to the day when they also add international cities!

Step Up Travel claims to be the first application of Web 2.0 to Responsible Travel, and I think they may be right. There are older websites devoted to responsible travel, including both resources on responsible travel issues and listings of responsible tour products. Two that I am familiar with are Planeta.com and the Big Volcano Ecotourism Centre. But both of these are in need of a major Web 2.0 face lift. And there is the National Geographic Center for Sustainable Destinations, which is sometimes related to the more commercial National Geographic Traveler. As colorful and engaging as National Geographic is, however, it lacks a social interface and comes across as more institutional and less in touch with the "real" people in a destination.

So I think, yes, Step Up Travel is the first responsible travel site on the Web 2.0 era:

• It has an attractive and clean interface,
• it provides resources to help make travel more responsible,
• it appears to be making a concerted effort to market truly local products that support the destination, and
• it has a Travel Network for "Socially-minded Travelers to Connect with local people, Get off the beaten path, and Change the face of travel."

The Travel Network will be the real test of the success of Step Up Travel in achieving its goals of linking local people with concerned and responsible tourists. I have joined and it is successful.