Visual Itineraries Launches Consumer Travel Planning Tool

PORTLAND, OR, July 16, 2012 (Press-News.org) Visual Itineraries, maker of a custom itinerary creation tool for travel agents, has expanded their offerings, creating a new consumer-facing planning tool. The company has aggregated rich content (high-resolution photo galleries, videos, virtual tours, webcams, and maps) for over 2000 locations around the world, from tropical destinations in the South Pacific islands and the Caribbean to African safari lodges.

With the travel agent tool, agents build customized itineraries for clients by simply choosing the resorts and excursions they're recommending to that client from checklists. With the consumer-facing tool, however, the consumer is presented with a panel of photos of resort choices, and the option of filtering those choices by destination or resort attributes such as "beach", "spa", "golf", "historic hotel", etc.

"When consumers are planning a special vacation, like a honeymoon, anniversary, or something exotic like a safari, often they'll want to broaden their horizons and go somewhere they've never been...perhaps somewhere they've never even heard of" says Michael Cottam, founder of Visual Itineraries. "They don't necessarily know where they want to go already, which means that traditional travel websites that make you pick your destination, then your dates fail for them. The idea with our new tool is that they might not know where they want to go, but they'll know it when they see it."

The planning tool is free to consumers, and also provides travel experts in various destinations to answer consumers' questions and assist with booking, if needed.

Visual Itineraries was founded in 2010, and is based in Portland, OR.

Website: http://www.visualitineraries.com