Location-based services have been gaining attention in the last period, and the latest announcement coming from Stay.com reiterates that cloud travel-related services are consequential products of this trend. Stay.com saw a great opportunity in integrating Google Places API for its users to identify items listed in search to produce their own guidebooks and share their reviews with contacts from the social media environment before producing a final guidebook-style product. The Add Your Own feature allows users to incorporate reviews, hotels, restaurants, activities, tours etc into their own guides and share it by means of the Facebook Connect system.

Route 66 recently released a Google-related app within the Mobile World Congress 2011 that was held in Barcelona. The two apps, the ROUTE 66 Maps + Navigation app, and the ROUTE 66 Drive & Walk app, both with “Follow Me” augmented reality feature, transposing real time view of the road ahead through the device’s built-in camera. 3D mappage and optional extras like Real Time traffic updates and speed camera alerts enrich the driving experience.

Travel within the mobile sector has been seen as troublesome lately. To be more specific, the quarrelsome Google and Trip Advisor have started ‘an argument’ after Google’s voicing of plans to use its own algorithm for Google Places to become the leader among competitors’ travel sites. Two weeks ago, Trip Advisor made an important acquisition for mobile device users, that of EveryTrail, the developer of a GPS-enabled publishing platform to create outdoor tours and city guides for mobile devices, from which Trip Advisor users will enjoy an enriched quality of travel information via smartphones.

The travel industry in the online environment is facing ‘heavy traffic,’ and due to the over-segmentation of the market, players in the travel sector must act accordingly by offering up-to-date and personalized services. A relevant example is NileGuide’s recent launch of its updated website offering among many others, the possibility to compare hotel pricing in real time  and online tool for visually-impaired users to manage flight search and booking.