Do We Really Need TripIt?

[qi:004] Do we really need another online travel startup? Gregg Brockway, one of the co-founders of online travel site Hotwire.com (EXPE), thinks so. His latest venture, TripIt, launched today. Aimed at the growing number of travelers who are buying flights, hotel rooms and car rentals directly from supplier sites, TripIt allows them to organize all of these individually booked arrangements in one place.

The company enters a crowded space. TripHub.com, for example, similarly allows users to collate their travel plans. But TripIt’s unique twist is that it lets users forward the confirmation e-mails from their bookings to TripIt, which then takes the pertinent information, such as flight number, date and time, and automatically inputs it the user’s travel profile. Also, the site uses the provided travel information to offer related info that could be helpful for the trip, such as weather and local maps.

TripIt isn’t selling flights or hotel rooms, but rather the company expects to make money through advertising and lead generation for online travel merchants. TripAdvisor.com has a similar revenue model. So do more established players such as Mobissimo.

Backed by $1 million in Series A funding from O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures raised last April, we’re not sure the TripIt business plan will fly, pardon the pun. Coming from the online travel industry might give Brockway an edge over competitors when pitching his site to potential advertisers, but will that edge be enough?

It’s an attractive market to get a piece of, that’s for sure. The U.S. online travel market will grow to $128 billion in 2011 from $85 billion in 2006, according to Jupiter Research. The research firm also notes a growth in online travel spend directly on supplier sites.

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