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Overview
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Traditional
travel publishers have long-standing problems by virtue
of the content areas they cover. Travel information changes
even as an author puts pen to paper - hotels and restaurants
open and close, prices go up, and governments change. This
fact, combined with publishing delays of at least a year,
means a travel guide is out of date the moment it is published.
In addition, the costs of publication result in guides pitched
at the masses, offering only certain geographical areas
and middle-of-the road content. There is no time for, or
profit in, creating guides which truly meet an individual's
needs.
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TraveLite's
solution is to design and prototype a web-based, customized
travel information system, creating a system of stored digital
travel information to bunde and distribute content users
want based on their interests and needs. TraveLite allows
travelers to sort through a database of travel content and
choose only what they decide they need or want. Through
a series of tasks, users create a customized digital guide,
which they can download to a PDA. In creating guides based
on their interests and needs, travelers will have the opportunity
to purchase their guide, rather than a static, bland product
designed for a generalized perception of what a generic
traveler in a region may need. The system will also allow
users to store personalized guides in an account on TraveLite
to later further modify and purchase the guide.
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TraveLite
is expected to sell to 'Net savvy travelers who are interested
in a slimmed-down, convenient version of a travel guide.
Rather than load down a backpack with one or more printed
travel guides, these travelers can tote a ditigal guidebook
of their own creation based on their specific interests
and needs. In a focus group consisting of Internet savvy
frequent travelers, all participants said they already
travel with their personal digital assistants because
they contain their address and schedule information.
By
providing customizable guidebooks for download to handheld
computers, TraveLite can provide features a printed guidebook
cannot support, as well as solve both of these problems:
heavy guidebooks with excess information and guidebooks
that do not contain all the information needed for a trip.
Our contention is that the increasing use of handheld
computers and familiarity with digitized information will
intersect in travelers who will, as a population, quickly
realize the advantage and convenience of storing personalized
travel information on handheld computing devices.
Furthermore,
for publishers, TraveLite is looking to fill a market
niche, to find the white spaces between current print
and electronic publishers. TraveLite provides and end-to-end
solution for travel publishers, assisting traditional
publishers in digitizing content and distributing it to
handheld computers. Publishers feel the need to go digital
but their knowledge and resources are limited. As part
of a value-added network, TraveLite helps publishers identify
better ways to produce and distribute travel content by
integrating the different areas of the value chain, leveraging
publishers' strong brand identity and consumer loyalty.
This helps publishers eliminate bottlenecks, minimize
production costs, reduce operating costs and the amount
of inventory required, and improve customer service by
speeding delivery times.
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