Expedia is using its homepage to promote its relatively new Trip Explorer tool for vacation packages.
Trip Explorer, launched last fall and still in beta, enables users, who may not have a destination or precise travel dates in mind, to find the lowest flight and hotel package deals sold on Expedia.com within the past 24 hours.
Users merely enter a departure airport, the month they want to travel, the maximum they want to spend per person and length of stay, and then Trip Explorer fills a map of the world (primarily the US, Canada and the Caribbean with a bit of Europe) with vacation package possibilities.
So if you want to depart from Chicago O'Hare in February for 5 to 7 nights and want to spend up to $2,000 per person, Trip Explorer might find you a $1,007 per night and per person package flying American Airlines to Curacao and staying at the Wave Hotel & Cafe.
And, when you click on the link, you navigate to an Expedia.com vacation packages page where Expedia also tries to upsell you on a more expensive trip ($1,625 per person) to the Renaissance Curacao Resort & Casino, which has an advertisement on the top of the vacation package listings.
Having a vacation inspiration tool such as Trip Explorer is becoming an ever-more popular feature for an online travel agency or airline these days. With an assist from Amadeus, Lufthansa has pioneered such features on some of its global websites.
Andrew Griffard, senior manager of merchandising at Expedia, says of Trip Explorer that "customer feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. They've given us plenty of great ideas for enhancements to the tool, which we are busy developing now."