Between William Shatner playing pitchman for Priceline and those quirky ads from Kayak, competition is intensifying in the online travel market. In fact the Web is getting rather crowded with search engines for lodging and portals for discovering new places to visit. Travora.com in New York launched this month with its eye on bringing such dispersed information together into one platform.
Nan-Kirsten Forte, CEO of parent company Travora Media, says Travora.com was created for travelers who want real-time information about their destinations in an easy-to-find place. Travora Media owns other travel websites such as 10Best.com, Nileguide.com, Localyte.com, and TopTrips.com.
The new site, Travora.com, brews a curious mix of travel information together. Need to know the cost of a McDonald’s Big Mac in Shanghai? Want to make a hotel reservation in Barcelona? Curious what the food servings are like at the Abyssinias Café in Athens? Travora’s dashboard offers its users answers to these and other questions. “You’re never going to land somewhere and not know what is going on [at your destination],” Forte says.
The site offers curated content such as news and events from other travel information sources as well as original material. To be candid, Travora.com is still in its nascent form with sparse details for some destinations. But Forte says more content and features are expected by the end of November.
She aims to establish Travora.com as a resource for business and casual travelers. It can be used by commuters who want to know more about the nearby cities they regularly travel back and forth to. The website may also recommend apps designed to be used locally at the destinations. “For the Louvre, there are three different apps you can download to walk you through that museum,” she says. Each app may offer
