Yahoo! beefs up travel portal

Yahoo! Travel is stepping up its functionality for consumers with the addition of the recently unveiled Yahoo! Answers into the portal and the launch of a new Hotel Guides tool.

Yahoo! Maps has also been included in the overall upgrade of the Yahoo! Travel sites across Europe.

The developments will allow consumers to ask specific travel-related questions on the Yahoo! Answers platform within the existing travel portal, with relevant hotel information included alongside results to queries.

Tim Frankcom, European general manager of Yahoo! Travel, said: “Yahoo! Answers enables people to share all the experiential and factual knowledge which until now has been locked away in the minds of people around the world.

“By incorporating this service into the travel sector, where sharing experiences and personal recommendations play such a fundamental role, we are able to offer access to an international travel community online, creating a global platform for information sharing.”

The launch of Hotel Guides marks a major step forward for Yahoo! by allowing users to search for hotels based on facilities, with interactive maps and reviews created from results.

Frankcom added: “After Cruises, Hotels are currently the most common travel product to research online and book offline.

“We are confident that our new Hotel Guides will encourage more people to complete the transaction online.”

Ajax technology has been incorporated into the system to allow users to toggle between search results for hotels, based on facilities, ratings or price, without the need to refresh the page.

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