Interesting about the only non-ticket seller being Tripadvisor, I didn't realise it was that skewed toward trips sales.
Being able to use the context of peoples existing plans and calendar/schedules to provide automated concierge type suggestions of what would suit them best in terms of travel (e.g flights, hotels etc)
Focused on B2B travel rather than vacations though for reasons others have put very well in here :)
To begin with though, we want to solve the problems inherent in calendaring/scheduling in the first place, and then build a technology platform from there that people can use to add context and automation to all sorts of use cases, travel being one of them.
Anyone interested in what we are doing would really appreciate feedback, good or bad :)
I think this is a good strategy since even a small population of traveling power-users who are keen on sharing their experiences can generate a lot of content and value for your site.
Here, that's a reason for having very low trust for travel planers. They want to bring you sideways. You're the product.
Once someone creates a self-hosted, WordPress-like, trip sharing software, I'd be all over it. Like my blog, I'd like to know that my time spent writing and uploading photos is going to last longer than the typical lifespan of a startup.
Based on what you said, you seem like the user we would target. Any feedback would be brilliant!