• by Tameka Kee , May 9, 2007

Yahoo has enhanced its Yahoo Travel portal in order to bring users more personalized travel info destination and advertisers more effective lead generation.

The revamp adds both user-generated content and behavioral targeting functionality to the site's three main components--Trip Planner, Travel Guides, and the FareChase comparison search engine--in addition to improved mapping and instant-messaging capabilities.

"Overall, we're excited about pulling together all the tools, functionality and technology available to help our users get inspired for their travel plans," said Fiona Lake Waslander, director of product management for Yahoo Travel.

The portal will highlight ten individually relevant destinations in a module called "Today's Picks," with recommendations powered by both the user's activity and the behavior of similar users across the Yahoo network. A couple searching for a "romantic" weekend in Seattle, for example, will receive suggestions tagged as "romantic" by other users from Seattle.

Comments from users' Trip Journals, uploaded photos from Flickr, and even accompanying Yahoo avatars will be displayed in a sidebar on Yahoo's Travel Guides--modules that delve into the attractions and topography of more than 45,000 locations. These Travel Guides will now also feature hotel and flight options based on users' home airports, in addition to examples of prices found by other Yahoo users.

While FareChase will continue directing users to partner sites where they can actually book flights and hotels, with the new personalization features, "we'll be sending our partners more effective leads because the users are actively engaged in the trip-planning process," said Waslander.

A new Flight Planner plug-in for Yahoo Messenger will allow two users to plan a trip collaboratively, showing the same sets of FareChase flight results in both windows. Increased functionality on Yahoo Maps gives users the option of layering different types of maps--an in-depth diagram of the Grand Canyon's trails over a basic satellite map, for example--to create custom options for each trip.