Travelport Opinions, "the online network and review site for travel professionals," is pushing a form of open enrollment.
In the first edition of its newletter, which was published today, Travelport Opinions by Vinivi says it tripled its membership by enabling participants in the network to "invite other professionals to join Travelport Opinions" by sending them an email individually or by importing contacts from Microsoft Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo Mail and MSN Hotmail.
In addition, anyone can request an invitation from the Travelport Opinions log-in page.
So, in the global social networking battle for the hearts and minds of the travel agent community, Travelport Opinions and rival Sabre's Agentstream have taken divergent paths.
Travelport Opinions has taken a relatively open approach and Agentstream is available to agents only, regardless of their GDS affiliation. However, the vast majority of Agentstream's members use the Sabre GDS.
Travelport Opinions claims more than 7,600 tourism professionals as members while Agentstream pegs its membership at 4,100.
It's an interesting differentiation.
In this age of Twitter and Facebook, how open should a travel agent community be?
Disclosure: Tnooz has a content partnership with Agentstream where some Tnooz stories appear on Agentstream.