Travel review aggregator Kango goes live

Diane Clarkson | December 19, 2007, 02:17 PM

A few years ago, it was a pleasant surprise to find a couple of reviews from other travelers to help select a hotel or destination. Today, there are millions of reviews online and the result can be overwhelming.

Enter Kango.

Kango is a travel review aggregator, using natural language analysis to search 20 million traveler opinions from over 1000 Web sites to deliver recommendations based on your specific preferences.

What does this mean to travelers? If you look up “family” in Maui, Kango will deliver hotels and activities results based on other travelers who were on a family vacation. This means you don’t have to read dozens of reviews trying to find like-minded travelers. If you switch to “romantic”, the results change immediately to hotels and activities suitable for a romantic trip.

Initial beta users will be able to use Kango to search for romantic or family-friendly accommodation and activities in California and Hawaii. Results are based on tags with weightings extracted from aggregated travel opinions, and results are organized by relevancy (not advertisers or sponsored).

I’ve been talking for a long time about the need for online travel to better mimic the traditional travel agency experience of providing recommendations based on preferences. Kango is an exciting example of how this is possible, making travel planning easier and delivering qualified leads to travel providers.