Travel Videos Find Homes Online

With all the moment-capturing that goes on during vacations, does it make sense to have an online destination dedicated to sharing travel videos? Turns out more than one person thinks it’s a good idea. Two separate sites are launching today with that premise — Lonelyplanet.tv and Trivop.

Lonely Planet, the venerable guidebook maker, is expanding its original programming efforts to launch a website dedicated to travel video.

The site, powered by Reality Digital, advertises a contest with the prize being $5000, a computer, a camera, Final Cut Express HD, and a contract to buy your next video. No embeds, unfortunately, but here’s a screenshot.

Channels include “Encounter” for videos of locals, “Bluelist” for recommendations, “Guerilla Guide” for the low-down, “Oh F#@*! Oh Wow” for the best and worst, “A Year of Parties,” and “Tripcasts” for anything else. Channels are a mixed bag of Lonely Planet material and user material, with refreshingly minimal separation between the two.

Across the pond, Trivop, a product of Paris-based startup Videoagency, is dedicated to hotel videos,. It currently hosts hotelier-made videos, but promises user uploads are on the way. “[Y]ou will be able to compare what the hotel would like to show you and what travellers have actually experienced during their recent stay,” the company said in a press release.

However, it’s unclear travel video is a good business proposition. Just last week we wrote about TurnHere, a similar site devoted to videos about neighborhoods, changing direction to focus on more lucrative sponsored content.

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