4 Web sites hope to gain a solid foothold with adventurous travelers
Like well-heeled climbers determined to scale Mount Everest, cash-infused
Web sites are struggling to muscle in on a burgeoning adventure-travel
market that can encompass everything from cooking schools in Tuscany
to subsistence camping in the Outback.
''It's the fastest growing area of online travel,'' says David Kirby,
editor of Interactive Travel Report.
The biggest buzz surrounds a quartet of competitors billed as ''one-
stop, full service'' sites for the Patagonia crowd.
All four chant the Internet mantra of commerce, content and community
by offering tour, book and gear purchases, destination and activity
information and online forums laced with advice from resident experts
and/or avid readers. Recognizing the complicated nature of adventure
travel, none provide direct online tour booking. But they already
supply, or plan to add, such gee-whiz features as live online customer
service and gear checklists tailored to specific kinds of trips.
But like so many other travel Web sites, these often deliver far less
than their jam-packed home pages promise -- and could end up languishing
in base camp while their customers head elsewhere.
Here's a closer look.
iExplore.com
Like its closest competitor, Away.com, iExplore defines the adventure
travel market broadly. Aimed less at buff Gen Xers and more at baby
boomers who might raft the Grand Canyon one year and eat their way
through Japan the next, it sells 4,000 tours through about 100 tour
companies. Can't find anything that fits? iExplore.com says its 25-
person call center can customize most trips, as well as answer destination
questions and suggest gear.
Strengths: iExplore.com does a fairly good job of grouping related
information in one place. Click on a tour, for example, and the resulting
page will provide links to background research (including Insight
Guides and Lonely Planet), recommended reading and gear, in-house
experts and reader reports, and ''trip details'' that incorporate
day-by-day itineraries.
Weaknesses: Travelers can't do a specific search for an activity and/or
destination. And while iExplore touts its stable of experts (certified
PADI divemasters and former trip leaders for Mountain Travel/Sobek
among them), those experts may have to cover a lot of ground -- including,
in one case, all of Central and South America.
Adventureseek.com
Launched in December, this site sells about 4,000 active tours from
250 North America-based outfitters. A still-rudimentary ''trip wizard'
' helps match travelers to trips and lets them compare features; would-
be buyers can call a toll-free number that redirects them to the selected
outfitter, link to the outfitter's site, or fill out an online reservation
form with a promised response within 24 hours.
Strengths: Adventureseek's clean design doesn't bludgeon readers with
choices. The site encourages participation by awarding ''AdventureMiles'
' for becoming a member, submitting trip reports and buying trips.
Miles can be redeemed for selected books or gift certif- icates at
partners R.E.I. or Lonely Planet guidebooks (which also supplies destination
content).
Weaknesses: The ''free miles'' gambit hasn't paid off yet. A ''community
center'' includes a picture of the week, but no trip reports or outfitter
critiques. And while Adventureseek boasts its staffers have ''carefully
interviewed'' each outfitter for its ''extensive and evaluative profiles,
'' it doesn't share its selection criteria with readers.
Away.com
Designed to ''challenge the mind, body and senses'' and financed in
part by Gannett Co. (parent of USA TODAY), this new site created from
the recent merger of GreenTravel.com and AdventureQuest.com casts
a wide net. (Just how wide? A recent reader travelogue, promoted on
the home page, promises the low-down on a Royal Caribbean cruise.)
Travelers can choose from among about 1,000 tour companies. Trips
are categorized by activity, destination and channel (adventure, '
'green'' and cultural); booking is through Away.com's call center
in Portland, Maine.
Strengths: Recognizing that adventure travel doesn't always entail
a two-week commitment and a willingness to pop anti-malarial pills,
the site's personalized ''MyAway.com'' feature supplies weekend escape
ideas, including applicable last-minute, Internet-only airfares.
Weaknesses: Away.com is crammed with information, including the full
text of 80 Moon Handbooks, but site navigation is cumbersome. A search
for ''Napa Valley biking'' turned up such ringers as an article on
Balinese food and a bike tour from Prague to Vienna.
GORP.com
The name stands for Great Outdoor Recreation Pages, though the allusion
to hikers' nuts-and-raisin mixture is apt. Thanks to last month's
launch of a travel service and in-house call center that can book
more than 3,500 tours through 450 operators worldwide, GORP has moved
far beyond the how-to-build-a-canoe contingent. But this Internet
trailblazer -- the site was launched in 1995 -- is still aimed squarely
at outdoor enthusiasts.
Strengths: Robust content (the site mixes staff and freelance articles
with guidebook excerpts from several outdoor publishers) and a fervent,
gather-around-the-campfire sense of community that includes both
expert advice and frequent reader contributions. Gear supplier PlanetOutdoors.com
has a live help feature that lets sales staff ''push'' relevant information
directly to buyers' computer screens.
Weaknesses: GORP's recent expansion into the role of online travel
agent risks alienating some of its loyal, do-it-yourself readers.
International coverage is spotty: While GORP pitches more than a dozen
tours to the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, travelers won't find any
background information (or links to that information) on the site.
E-mail lbly@usatoday.com
Copyright 2000, USA Today, a division of Gannett Co., Inc.
