TripWiser and Wcities Team Up to Create Unmatched User Experience in Family Trip Planning

TripWiser, a prominent family trip planning site, and Wcities, the world's premier location-based information service, enter into a strategic partnership to create the most affluent user experience in family trip planning. State-of-the-art trip planning capabilities by TripWiser combined with expert-rated content from Wcities create a truly unique co-branded site, wcities.tripwiser.com (http://wcities.tripwiser.com), that moves far beyond blogging and offers an unmatched trip planning service.

Sunnyvale, Calif. (PRWEB) July 10, 2007-- TripWiser, an emerging leader in the online trip planning space, and Wcities, the world's premier location-based information service, entered into a strategic partnership to create the most affluent user experience for families planning trips to or within the United States and Canada.

TripWiser and Wcities have partnered to create an unmatched social trip-planning site that moves beyond the blogging or destination’s-guide operation. The partnership shaped into a truly modern Web 2.0 site - wcities.tripwiser.com (http://wcities.tripwiser.com). Pleasantly stylish and strikingly sophisticated, the site has enjoyed great momentum from the first day of its official Beta launch and it continues to receive positive user feedback on a daily basis. A few features were marked by users as favorites:

•    Ability to clone someone else’s trips and modify them on the fly

•    Ability to get Editors Choice recommendations for attractions, hotels and restaurants in all major cities in the United States and Canada

•    Ability to customize itineraries by adjusting parameters on the social personalization "scale", i.e. adventure vs. relaxing; family vs. couples; and move around items inside the trip scheduler via a convenient drag-and-drop functionality.

The newly formed partnership is raising the bar in both travel related content and trip planning functionality. By combining user-generated content with recommendations from travel experts and an intuitive UI, the process of trip planning turns into a fun and enjoyable activity that the whole family can share. The site has been noticed by big guns in the social networking space and shortly after it received a series of thumbs-up reviews from top experts in the technology crowd. Sites like Mashable.com (http://mashable.com/2007/06/22/travel-hacking/), Killerstartups.com (http://www.killerstartups.com/Web20/TripWiser--Bringing-New-Meaning-to-Family-Travel/), Blogger.com (http://www.blogger.com/feeds/21649434/posts/default), LifeHacker.com (http://lifehacker.com/software/travel/plan-your-vacation-itinerary-with-tripwiser-272040.php) have all judged the young TripWiser to be among the leading trip planning sites in the Online Travel industry.

"The reason behind our very positive acceptance by the online travel community is that we help reduce the ‘noise’”, says David Reichman, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of TripWiser. “People spend more time planning their trips than actually traveling, shuffling through hundreds of user reviews trying to dig relevant content is tiresome. We are committed to change this experience. Together with Wcities, we have created a unique service that allows travelers to enjoy the best from both worlds, expert-approved trips and great content from people like you. We also help travelers to weave in their own preferences on the fly. By partnering with Wcities, we were able to open a “Golden Path” for our users, combining travelers’ recommendations with expert advice. Simply take someone else’s trip, clone it and add or delete particular attractions, restaurants, museums, theme parks, anything you like.”

For Wcities, partnership with TripWiser was an easy decision. “The fact that we provide travel expert recommendations for cities, restaurants, hotels and popular attractions puts our service ahead of many other travel sites offering just user-generated content. It is a known problem in the online travel industry that a large percentage of such content is not reliable," said Fraser Campbell, VP of Wcities. “By contrast, Wcities prides itself by offering expert-approved travel material. Add to this the fantastic trip planning capabilities delivered by TripWiser and you get unmatched value in terms of user experience, and it did not take long for users to notice the difference.”

Both TripWiser and Wcities look forward to a continuing growth of wcities.tripwiser.com (http://wcities.tripwiser.com). The partnership was meant to help users enjoy their family trips from the moment they begin planning.

About TripWiser

Headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, TripWiser is a state-of-the-art trip planning and itinerary building site for family travel to or within the United States and Canada. The site leverages the collective wisdom of users and provides a complete trip planning service that takes project management out of travel and brings a whole new meaning to family travel in America. Through a pleasantly stylish and strikingly modern interface TripWiser allows users to select from thousands of ready-to-go itineraries created by real travelers and travel experts, each containing popular destinations, accommodations, activities, attractions, and other interesting things to do. Users can clone someone else’s trips and modify them on the fly via convenient drag-and-drop functionalities. Visit out site at http://www.tripwiser.com

Contacts

TRIPWISER

Anna Tulchinsky, +1 408-524-3120

anna(@)tripwiser.com

http://www.tripwiser.com

About WCITIES

Founded in 1998, WCITIES provides comprehensive, multi-lingual, up-to-date travel information for more than 1900 cities worldwide. From dining, nightlife and shopping listings to practical information and events, WCITIES is a valuable source for locals and business and leisure travelers. WCITIES licensed web and mobile products include City Guides, Event Guides, Editors Choice and Weather. WCITIES supports key travel and mobile players including Yahoo!, Yahoo! Europe, AOL, MSN, Google Calendar, American Airlines, Marriott, Omni, Orange, and Wind. For further information contact Kenneth Joyce (ken(@)wcities.com) +1 415 495 8090, or visit http://www.wcities.com.

Contacts

WCITIES

Kenneth Joyce, +1 415-495-8090

ken(@)wcities.com

http://www.wcities.com

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