June 06, 2007: VibeAgent, a new Travel 2.0 site that "combines user reviews, social networking and meta-search to provide users with hotel recommendations they can trust, at prices they can´t beat," launches its private-beta site today. Think of it as hotel reviews, travel meta-seach, and social networking all in one.
VibeAgent was founded in early 2006 to help people make more informed hotel booking decisions. Once publicly launched, the site aims to provide consumers with trustworthy hotel recommendations written by people (or as they call them, agents) who share tastes and preferences.
The recommendations are based on a experiential search tool to help consumers quickly describe their ideal hotel experience, and a social search algorithm that prioritizes the reviews of community members whose preferences match, and whose reviews have been deemed trustworthy.
Once travelers have found their prefered hotel, VibeAgent connects to several OTAs and hotels directly, to find the best available rate. Currently, the company has signed InterContinental Hotels, priceline and Venere for inventory and rates.
What puts VibeAgent apart from other Travel 2.0 sites, is its personalized social networking platform, that allows users to invite their friends and collegues to share reviews and recommendations, or join groups of similar-minded people to share experiences and receive good advice, or read reviews written by experts on the places to visit.
