UpTake, the Travel Meta-Search and Discovery Site Launches Public Beta.

They has amassed the travel industry's largest database of hotels and activities and analyzed more than 20 million online reviews and opinions from other travelers.

With a simple word, they collects and organizes OnLine Word-of-Mouth (user reviews, blogging stuff, etc) from thousands of travel websites.

Founded by Yen Lee, former general manager of Yahoo! Travel, UpTake (formerly known as Kango) brings together content from thousands of trusted web sites like Expedia, Fodors, goCityKids, Travelocity, Virtual Tourist, and Yahoo! Travel, offering more than 400,000 U.S. hotels and activities.

"Unlike other travel sites, we are focused on delivering the most comprehensive coverage," said Lee.
"We offer the broadest and deepest information about U.S. hotels and we'll be developing similar levels coverage for activities and destinations later this year."

Elliott Ng, VP of Marketing whas kind to answers some questions and give us some thoughts about the travel market, travel bloggers community and the UpTake projects.

Enjoy !

Q>> what is most important to creating an application that aggregates user generated content? Any particularities for the travel market?

The travel industry is extremely diverse. I'll use Chris Anderson's "long tail" analogy to describe the travel space. For the top "head" destinations and hotels, the problem for consumers is too much user generated content.
What is important for applications serving the "head" is ways to organize all of the data. We've built systems to automatically analyze and categorize all of the data so its easily used to make decisions.
For "tail" destinations, hotels, alternative lodging types, and attractions, the problem is different. There is not enough user generated content. That's why we couldn't stop at the top 10 travel sites...we need to aggregate user generated content from over 1000+ to get more of the user generated content out there for these "tail" destinations and products.

Q>> you have already built travel content with UpTake blog, do you intended to continue in this way?

Yes. In fact we just split our blog into two different RSS feeds. One is focused on helpful consumer travel content, and one is focused on travel industry news and opinions. Here are the URLs and feeds:

Consumer travel tips:
http://www.uptake.com/blog/travel

Travel industry news and analysis:
http://www.uptake.com/blog/travel-industry

Q>> UpTake is positioning as a semantic travel meta-search, a new place in all the market industry. Do you have a World ambition or can we see some market priorities.

We would love to take UpTake outside of the US, which is the only place we serve right now. What we are doing is pretty hard, even though we have some really smart people. So we feel we have a lot more work to do to even serve the US market at the level we want to before we pursue international markets.
I think our next move would be to target popular international destinations for US travelers like Mexico and the Carribean. I'm also interested in making our service useful to Europeans planning inbound travel to the US.
But we don't really know how to do that, and would look to people like you to give us advice on that. Beyond that we don't know, but I personally would love to see us address leisure travel in the EU. Although with the high Euro, I won't be able to afford to actually come myself unless I can sleep on your couch!

Q>> You are genius to engage with the travel bloggers community ! What do you learn from them and how can we help you to develop your business? You know, sometimes in Life it is simple as "asking" and you get the answers ;-)

We really like the T-list and the travel blogger community (see the P.S for links).
My biggest regret is that we are serving mainstream travelers in the US on common, drive-to destinations, and not all the exciting international adventure destinations that the travel bloggers are focusing on. So our product may not be as useful to "extreme travelers" and "trip collectors" as I would like. I think our biggest challenge is finding ways to serve lots of special interests - divers, surfers, history buffs, roller coaster fans, amusement park fanatics - the diversity of people's travel interests really are overwhelming and we would love to serve them in some kind of scalable way.
What I am learning about from the travel bloggers is what people are passionate about. It takes a lot of energy and commitment to blog. So I'm getting a view of what passionate people care about and trying to figure out a way we can use UpTake to serve these people with a special product.
The travel bloggers remind me that travel is NOT about price and deals, but about life-changing experiences! That's what we want to focus on!

My personal vision is figuring out how travel bloggers can increase global peace and understanding. I feel travel is one way that people can understand their world better so they can be better global citizens. According to this 2007 New York Times article only 27% of Americans even have a passport. The world would be a better place if more Americans got out and traveled. Maybe travel bloggers can share more global points of views to their audiences and start changing perceptions!

Q>> What could be the marketing opportunities with UpTake for the travel operators sites?

Our vision is to allow travel operators to add content to UpTake that is good for consumers and drives traffic to their sites. We're still working on this functionality so its not easy right now, but is what we want to enable for the future.
For example, a dive operator in the Caribbean could author useful content for people interested in dive sites in the Caribbean. They could add links to their site in this content.
That way, people who are searching for diving in the Carribean could learn more and discover their site.
This is a more "consultative selling" approach-helping people with their educational and informational needs first, before trying to sell your product.

If anyone is interested in being a pilot partner in this regard
>>> please have them contact me at Elliott (at) uptake (ddott) com

Thanks Elliott ;-)

What do you think of UpTake and the european & french market for their business?

Any thoughts from travel operators who want to be a pilot partner?

UPDATE : ReadWriteWeb Blog have a great post about UpTake, look at it here

PS :
T-List at Guido blog , Happy Hotelier

Travel marketing blogs, Tips from the T-List