You've probably booked online reservations for your past vacations - from flights and train seats to hotels and rental cars. The internet is full of options. You'll often search for deals and receive a list of 100 hotels, in 50 different places, with endless flight options and booking options to choose from. Overwhelming and time consuming, how effective is it to have so many options at your fingertips? Plus, many of the basic travel deal sites include hotels and locations that may not be ideally located, or maybe barely make the cut for decent living conditions.
Need a weekend getaway that is less trouble to book, one that you know will be in a top-notch location, have nice digs, and will be booked and pre-scouted by travel agents who know what quality is? Try visiting a luxury travel deal site. More and more of our short-term deal shopping sites, like Groupon, Gilt Groupe, LivingSocial and more, have begun to add a luxury travel deal site or two to their daily deals. A step up from your basic travel site, these offer outstanding deals, narrow down the locations, and include luxurious resorts catered to your desire and personality type. Even better, since the deals can only be bought during a short span of time, you know these destinations won't be painfully crowded.
The latest talk has focused around a new luxury travel deal site coming out later this June, 2011 called Groupon Getaways. According to CNN Travel, "Groupon Getaways with Expedia is expected to launch in late June, offering deals lopping about 50 percent off retail prices listed on other travel sites."
Implications - One positive effect: people can now take a much-needed break - a simple weekend getaway - despite economic downtown. What does this mean for traditional travel sites like Travelocity.com, TripAdvisor.com and others? Will their sales be impacted by the luxury travel deal sites that are popping up all over, like Bloomspot.com, or are they in a totally different niche than the luxury travel deal sites?
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