Here is an industry that you don’t see a lot of startups jumping in to. There is something about starting a travel website that scares people off. It is a huge industry, and one where customers actually spend a lot of money and the commissions, especially on something like cruises, can be massive. So, I was excited when I first started hearing rumblings about what Stuart was up to.
Enter TripHarbour, a startup led by former Chief Marketing Officer of Expedia.com and Founder of Expedia Canada, Stuart MacDonald. TripHarbour went live this morning and is probably one of the most polished launches I have seen in the last year.
Stuart and the team didn’t go in to “beta”, instead they tested the site internally as much as they could and only launched when they had a site that was shipshape. This approach makes a lot of sense when your target market is the general public (not early adopters) and if they encounter a single error or get confused even once, they may never come back.
The thing that sets TripHarbour apart from other travel sites is that it is focused exclusively on cruising. There are surprisingly few decent cruising websites and none that combine community features and cruise buying all in one. Segmenting the travel market is bound to pay off, cruising is a $21 billion dollar market, that’s enough treasure for any sailor.
Congrats to the entire TripHarbour team. Now the real hard work starts: Getting people to the site. Luckily Stuart has some experience with that, and I am going to watch closely and learn as much as I can as they get TripHarbour out there.
April 25th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
[...] job by Stuart and the team. Congrats. Stuart has a post on the Tripharbour blog, and Mark Evans and StartupNorth have posted on it as well. Mathew posted this article under Cool, Social networks, Web2.0 on [...]
April 25th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
The site is definitely polished and very easy to navigate. Seems to have some really good deals too.
The cruising community is a very tight nit group comprised of what seems like mostly 40+. The site will be a refreshing addition to the current mix of cruising sites available.
April 25th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Thanks for the post, guys. See you on the lido deck :)
April 25th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
[...] check out the new TripHarbour site and some of the other blog coverage (Mathew Ingram, Mark Evans, StartUpNorth. It has a local connection as it was built by the folks just across the street from [...]
August 10th, 2008 at 6:26 am
As a fellow cruiser the industry has grown so much over the last 10 years. Very nice looking site and I hope they do well with so much preparation going into it. A fresh approach is always welcome.
September 14th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
The Trip Harbour site looks good, it presents professionally – best of luck guys!
November 11th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Another site to check is here http://tscheiman.travelencia.com
November 17th, 2008 at 3:37 am
The thing that sets TripHarbour apart from other travel sites is that it is focused exclusively on cruising. There are surprisingly few decent cruising websites and none that combine community features and cruise buying all in one. Segmenting the travel market is bound to pay off