Skift Take
Lonely Planet has a ton of digital content, offers booking services through partners, and could round things out a bit with the acquisition of TouristEye for online and offline trip-planning purposes.
Lonely Planet acquired a mobile app for trip-planning, TouristEye, and Daniel Houghton, Lonely Planet COO, says “we will work closely together to marry our technology and communities how and where it makes sense.”
Houghton indicated that the acquisition wasn’t merely designed to hire the TouristEye team, which will remain in place.
“We see value in the team and their accomplishments, as well as the product they created,” Houghton says. “We are always working to solve the problems of the traveler as well as inspiring ore people to travel and TouristEye fits well with that strategy.”
The TouristEye Android and iOS apps enable mobile users to collect activities and destinations to create a wish list, and advertisers hit them up with special offers.
TouristEye claims more than 500,000 people have used the app, which integrates information from Yelp and Foursquare, and its text, photos and maps can be accessed offline to avoid data charges.
Houghton declined to provide terms of the deal, and said “we are working through those details now” on how TouristEye would be integrated with Lonely Planet’s assets.
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Tags: lonely planet
Photo credit: The Tourist Eye app enables users to collect attractions and destinations for trip-planning and bucket list purposes. Lonely Planet