TourismROI is a global B2B networking and information service for tourism destinations around the world.

I met up for a coffee with Richard Miller and Don Montague during the World Travel Market to find out more about the site.

Richard worked at the World Travel & Tourism Council for over 16 years culminating in a role as the Executive Vice President. In 2007 he joined MMG Worldwide, a NYC based firm specialising in marketing for the travel and hospitality sector and where Don is Chairman and CEO.

There is a holding page at www.TourismROI.com and downloadable brochure. They are beta testing the site at the moment with a number of destinations and plan to soft launch early this year. TourismROI has ambitious plans to be the world’s largest collection of tourism information and research for more than 6,200 destinations whilst providing a b2b networking platform that offers real value to destinations. The idea for the project was conceived early last year and was met with plenty of interest from investors and destinations. I’ve listed below a few of the problems that the site aims to solve and how they plan to do it.

[Read more →]

Seattle based Yapta have launched their public beta service that tracks price changes on specific flights. Users download a browser plug-in and then tag flights on major travel sites of which ten are currently supported.

The main difference from existing sites like Farecast and Kayak is that it helps users get a refund for flights where the price has dropped after you have bought the ticket. Yapta will inform you of a price drop and advise you to get in touch with the airline for a coupon or refund, something that few consumers do.

As Erick Schonfeld points out, the idea of a service that keeps a tab on prices for you could be applied to other areas of travel such as hotels, holidays and rental cars.

Not to be deterred, the team behind Yapta have pressed on with the launch even with the unexpected news that their headquarters went up in flames on Monday morning.

boo.com has relaunched as a one stop travel site. Launched as an online fashion retailer in 1999 the company famously went bust following the dotcom boom in the late 90s. CNET.com ranked boo.com as the sixth greatest dotcom flop and the company burned its way through $120 million during its short lifetime.

Fast forward to 2007 and Web Reservations International have bought boo.com for its main consumer brand that includes 50,000 properties. Focused on accommodation the aim is to expand this and meet traveller’s needs (flights, care hire…) under the one site.

As the strapline (’Collection wisdom’) suggests, the site also looks to make the most of user generated reviews and online communities interested in sharing their destination recommendations.