(ARA)
- Spring Break will be here before you know it so now is the time to
start planning that big trip. While some Americans still turn to
travel agents to do trip planning, most are now doing it themselves
online. According to a new report from the travel industry research
group, PhoCusWright Inc, more than half of all U.S. travel will be
booked online this year.
The Internet puts a wealth of travel information at your fingertips,
but once you have all the information in hand, it can be a real
challenge to stay organized. Well, now you can throw away that bulky
manila folder filled with print-outs of all your flight, hotel,
rental car, maps, directions, weather, and travel notes. There’s a
free online service available from TripIt (www.tripit.com) that
automatically organizes all your travel information into one master
travel itinerary that you can share with the people who need to know
-- no matter where you’ve booked the different parts of your trip.
Based in San Francisco and founded in October 2006, TripIt’s mission
is to simplify the online travel experience. By automatically
creating master itineraries with all your critical trip information,
this unique online service helps do-it-yourself travelers organize
their travel plans so that their trips go more smoothly. Better yet,
TripIt enables friends, family and co-travelers to share travel
details and work together to plan new trips.
“We came up with the idea for TripIt because we were frustrated
do-it-yourself travelers ourselves and know firsthand that using the
Internet to make travel plans and organize the details is time
consuming and difficult,” says Gregg Brockway, TripIt’s president
and co-founder. “TripIt can do a lot of the ‘dirty work’ of
organizing travel. Our goal is for TripIt to be like a great
personal assistant and take care of all the details so that
travelers don’t have to.”
Here’s how TripIt works: A traveler simply forwards their travel
confirmation e-mails -- TripIt will work with most any travel
service -- and the TripIt “Itinerator” instantly incorporates them
into their master itinerary. Then, TripIt puts that information to
work on the traveler’s behalf by automatically anticipating basic
needs to make the trip easier, such as adding daily weather reports,
local maps and directions, helpful destination information and more
by using information pulled from a variety of other popular
websites. Travelers can then print out all their bookings neatly in
a single document to take on their trip. The information is always
available online, safe and secure.
Once the itinerary is created, TripIt helps solve the coordination
and communication challenges of keeping in touch with the people who
need to know about it. “With TripIt, it’s really simple to share
travel plans and collaborate on new trips with friends, family and
colleagues,” says Brockway.
To set up a free account with TripIt, visit www.tripit.com or just
email any of your travel confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com and
a master itinerary will be waiting for you to make your Spring Break
travel just a little easier this year.
