Travel planning software: The most common bad startup idea (2012)

One other reason is I think that travel planning is hard. Getting multiple people to agree on a destination, hotel, fares etc is all hard work. So most people only plan things with people whom they're familiar with, like close friends and family. If there's already a communication channel open like texting or Whatsapp etc it makes no sense to introduce more friction by having travel discussion go through a different channel. I remember an app for couple communication, Between. It had a similar problem. Why add another communication channel?

However, I have used tripit.com before and it's quite a nice tool. You simply email them all receipts, booking confirmations etc and it automatically gets added to your trip itinerary. However, it doesn't seem like a super successful business.

The trip planning tool I need aggregates all my accommodation searches (Airbnb, VRBO etc) into a single place and includes all relevant details (rooms, bathrooms, location, features, price per night) and then allows multiple parties to comment. Currently we copy all listings over to a Google Sheet and share it with others. It's super cumbersome and I'd pay for a tool like this.

A feature that rarely gets put at the top of the list is true collaboration. Traveling with just a spouse or with a group, multiple participants have different wants, needs, preferences, interests. Maybe one person is in charge of travel logistics, one in charge of food, one in charge of activity discovery.

There's not enough auto scheduling where you say "we want two days of rest, one day of museums, and to eat out 4 time" where it fills in the rest.

Good collaborative travel software needs voting. It needs a way for teams of people to make wishlists and then helps determine which will work out the best. Is it smart enough to notice between 3 people they picked 3 different mexican restaurants, so it should probably figure out which of those 3 is the best, or ask if you want to eat mexican 3 times.

Maybe everyone saying it cant work just cant see how great it could be. If it was Apple level "it just works" a group of friends might click "plan a trip" and swipe through some options for a while, JUST FOR FUN, and an hour later have a complex entire everything booked. It could even include some Splitwise/escrow functions. It could help you use the right credit card for the right purchase. It could help you maximize points across vendors. When I travel as a family, vs when I travel with friend group A vs when I travel with friend group B, the brand of rental car may change depend on the best available deal given our different memberships. Ideally, this software has everyones usernames and passwords and knows how to access loyalty only pages from the vendors. Theres TONS of little complex interactions in travel that could be abstracted away by smart machines. If you think a group spreadsheet is the answer, we dont have the same type of friends. I'm not unleashing an 8 or 12 year old on the master plan vacation spreadsheet, but they can swipe through Orlando options all day long.

A way for it to be "used every day" is for it to aggregate Yelp and Google Reviews, and local events and let you plan more than just out of town travel. "What are we doing before the concert on Saturday, do our babysitters have the schedule?" Another way to make it "used every day" is to just make it damn fun to use. Friend groups sitting around, swiping and daydreaming about dream vacations they might never take. Does nobody sit around and bullshit like "we should go to Florida." "I want to go to Nashville." "How about Gulfport." "As long as it has casinos." Then once an amazing trip is planned, impulse takes over and everybody says fuck it lets just do it. Vegas doesnt need to be the only impulse destination.