Story about TravelPod

Sitting in the garden of a relative's house in Cambridge last Friday afternoon - annual leave, I hasten to add - and who should call?

The Ottawa Business Journal, of course.

One of its hacks, Krystle Chow, was writing a piece about the ten year anniversary of travel journal website TravelPod.

Kevin May, editor of UK-based travel industry magazine Travolution, says the challenge for TravelPod is to stay on the cutting edge in order to keep and attract members, since there are so many alternatives for the Internet-savvy, connected traveller.

"A lot of travellers now have the confidence and feel empowered to create their own blogs and there are lots of other travel networks on the scene, so where does TravelPod go next?" he says. "There are other viable alternatives to the TravelPod model now ... and the challenge is to be constantly innovative, since good, successful travel sites need to continually evolve,' Mr May says.

"Some people feel that Facebook is the de facto social network [here in the UK], so you can see why people would want to use Facebook to spread the message, but on the flip side, it doesn't take a lot to use Facebook in a TravelPod way, by posting notes and pictures on Facebook in the same way they do on TravelPod. In that way, Facebook could become quite a competitor for TravelPod,' he says.

What wasn't mentioned in the piece was how we got onto TripAdvisor's takeover of the company. It is certainly a logical step for the user review website as it attempts to spread its (Expedia-owned) tentacles into new areas, and a nice injection of funds for TravelPod.

[Full article]

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

Technorati tags: travelpod expedia tripadvisor