Tech Crunch 50: Want a Great Vacation? GoPlanit!

One of the companies I saw at Tech Crunch 50 that I have been remiss in discussing is GoPlanit, a travel site that actually helps you plan your stay in a locale based upon your time, money, traveler intensity, and interests. The site is really interesting. You input a destination (there are 10 for the beta, and a much broader set is planned for the launch), dates, and the system plans your days from meals to activities. You can adjust the planning parameters based upon your budget and preferences for an intensity level in your days.

To test the platform I asked it to plan a trip to San Francisco in late September, for a week, with a moderate budget. I figured I’d be able to put my tourist hat on for “my city” and determine how well it plans fun an interesting days. Results were really quite interesting, and by interesting I am not finding a nice way to say “odd.” The choices combined tourist essentials plus an eclectic set of restaurants and down time activities that was refreshing.

Another great feature is the ability to pre-populate the system with your plans, and have it fill in the gaps. So, for example, if you were headed to Vegas and already had purchased tickets to Zumanity, you could input the date and time of the show and then have Goplanit fill in the rest of your day.

Goplanit offers more than just travel recommendations. Here is how the company describes it features:

GoPlanit helps save you time/money/aggravation every step of the way - before, during, and after your trip!
"One-Click Travel Planning" - Create a personalized trip calendar with our virtual travel agent in a matter of seconds! We'll do the legwork for you and find things to do and see while you're on your trip
"Cut Through the Noise" - Use our filtering engines to personalize your search results and return more relevant items based on your preferences
"Sharing is Caring" - Invite friends to go with you on your trips. Keep track of responses, comments, and more!
"Bring It With You" - Access your trip itinerary from your mobile device. Find nearby things to do and see
"Travel Microblogging" - Don't wait until you get home to write about your trip, update your trip journal with your musings right there and then while you're on your trip! Just send a text message to "70589" and start your message with the word "blog" and your travel blog will be automatically updated for all to see! Ex. blog 5 stars: I love this place!

The service is in beta, so not all the kinks are worked out. But I see a lot of promise in this offering. I would imagine that services like paid inclusion will be a part of their model, in addition to advertising. They could also charge commission for subsequent sales that they drive online. In short, there are a lot of directions they could go to make good money with this great idea.

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to write.