Nile Project Personalized Trip Planning

This week I met with Josh Steinitz, CEO of a new start-up called the Nile Project. The Nile Project uses personalization techniques enabling the consumer to create a more customized tour of a city. The consumer explicitly choosers an area of interest, then by using Ajax, the Nile project presents the consumer a limited number of preferences related to those interest. The application uses an Ajax slider (chose a value within a range) allowing the consumer to rate an attribute on a scale (e.g. cost from budget to most expensive). These than act as dynamic filters that present content that meets a consumer's requirements. Additionally the site acts as an aggregator of ratings from other sites (e.g Trip Advisor, Travelpost). As with other Travel 2.0 sites, trips can be shared with friend, relatives and travel companions. Once the itinerary is set, the Nile Project creates a customized itinerary in a PDF file so the consumer can take it along with them on the trip. The Nile Project represents a great example on how personalization can filter content to drive a more customized travel planning experience.