Yahoo! Introduced a new Web site that does not sell plane tickets or hotel rooms.
Instead, the new site integrates pay-per-click ads that charge a fee to companies such as Orbitz when users leave Yahoo’s travel pages.
Yahoo has also arranged a sponsorship deal for Trip Planner with MasterCard.
“Yahoo hopes to lure surfers to the site using Silicon Valley’s favorite gambit of the moment — user-generated content, this time in the form of user-generated travelogues and photos,” wrote Forbes.com.
Jasper Malcolmson, director of Yahoo! Travel, said:
“I don’t know about any premium brand being associated with a 100% user-generated content product. Advertisers tend to feel uncomfortable with user-generated content because it is unpredictable.”
He said he thought Trip Planner will help Yahoo! grow its traffic and revenues in the face of a maturing on-line market.
Report by David Wilkening
