Yahoo! Launches Online Travel Guide

The Internet giant Yahoo! Inc. (www.yahoo.com), introduced a suite of new products that transform Yahoo! Travel into a comprehensive online travel guide. Yahoo! Travel (www.travel.yahoo) is launching a new Trip Planner Beta, which enables users to create, tag, share and print personalized trip itineraries, drawing upon content from Yahoo!

Travel or from anywhere on the Web. Other new features include user-contributed travel photos through Flickr™, the Web's leading photo sharing community, and a database of vacation home rentals from owners.

The collective power of these new tools enhances consumers' ability to make their travel decisions, book their arrangements and conveniently organize their information all in one place.

Yahoo! Travel now offers complete destination information to help consumers through every step of the travel planning cycle. Yahoo!'s Travel Guides provide the largest online database of destination-specific travel information, with nearly 500,000 lodging and activity options in more than 40,000 destinations worldwide.

"At Yahoo! Travel, we want to help travelers find, use and share the knowledge needed to make the most of their trips," said James Slavet, general manager of Yahoo! Marketplace – Travel and Autos.

Trip Planner – Consumers are able to create, share and print a personalized travel itinerary.

• Allows users to create a customized trip itinerary using the comprehensive information about hotels, attractions and restaurants found in Yahoo! Travel Guides. Users can also create their own custom items, or add items from anywhere on the Web.
• Trip Plans can include interactive destination maps and driving directions.
• Users can choose to share their plans and receive travel recommendations from friends and fellow travelers.
• Users can search through shared Trip Plans as a source of ideas for their own travel planning.
• Offers a printable version that users can take along on their trips.

Flickr Photo Integration –Through the integration of Flickr's technology, Yahoo! Travel users can now search, view and contribute photos for their favorite destinations.

Traveler-submitted photos can provide the real picture and genuine flavor of a destination. These user contributed photos will complement the 300,000 existing photos on Yahoo! Travel.

User Ratings and Reviews -- Yahoo! Travel now features nearly 500,000 user ratings and 250,000 reviews written by Yahoo! users about various destinations, hotels, restaurants and activities.

Hotel Guides -- The addition of over 200,000 vacation rental by owner listings enhances Yahoo!'s existing database of over 150,000 hotels.

Destination Guides – Highly specific content on over 40,000 destinations and nearly 200,000 points of interest, including recommendations on things to do and places to eat.

Access to content from travel experts -- Yahoo! Travel also includes nearly 350,000 links to valuable external travel resources including reviews, best of lists, and articles from sources including the New York Times, Fodors and Conde Nast Traveler.