Today VibeAgent is relaunching its site as a Hotel Search Engine.

Our relaunch today is focused on making VibeAgent.com the #1 destination online to help you research and book a hotel room.

You’ll find the entire process of searching for a hotel room on our site greatly streamlined. We hope you’ll try it out and share this discovery with all your friends!

Entering Your Initial Search

If you’re doing a non-dated search, simply enter your location and go! If you want to further refine your search results, you can enter dates, your desired vibe, rooms/guests, even the specific hotel you are looking for or the currency in which you’d like to see rates.

You’ll find the font size for the location field larger for your viewing pleasure, and we’ve also significantly sped up our autocomplete.

We believe our new and improved calendar is the best online, anywhere, period.

Our double month view means you don’t have to scroll from month to month. You can even click on your check-in date, and then slide your mouse to your check-out date, making the date selection process super smooth. The calendar automatically closes after you’ve selected your check-out date.

Adding Your Hotel Vibe

To help you find the perfect hotel for your needs, click the button “Add Tags” to select the ambience, activities, and the type of guests the hotel is known for. You can select as few or as many tags as you want - we’ll use your requests to help filter and order your search results.

Adding Your Desired Location

Location is one of the most important criteria people use when making a hotel booking decision. VibeAgent’s unique location filter is the best in the business. For larger cities, you can choose to whittle down your search results to specific neighborhoods. You can also create a customized location filter - moving the borders of your search area wherever you want. You can even do this after you’ve gotten your initial search results and the search results will update in real time. Use this feature to narrow down your Manhattan hotel search, for example, to a specific city block.

Filtering Your Search Results

VibeAgent provides robust filters to help you narrow down your hotel search results in real-time so you can be sure you’re looking at the best hotels for your needs. These include a price filter, a star rating filter, a loyalty program filter, and an amenity filter. Do you want to stay in a hotel between $150 and $180 that is in the Hilton chain and has a pool and free breakfast? No problem! Let VibeAgent’s filters help you narrow down your hotel options accordingly; simply use your mouse to adjust the slider bars or check the boxes and your results will update instantly.


Comparing Your Rate Options

VibeAgent now parses the different room types that you can book, and shows you on the hotel’s room rates page the best rate for each room type in a summary view. Of course, to see other room rate options, you can expand each box by clicking on the “See all rates for this room type” link and the page will instantly expand to show you all of your available options. You can also filter this page by specific provider (e.g. Priceline or Hotels.com) if you only want to see rates from your favorite booking channel.

Navigating the Community Features

Finally, we’ve streamlined the main navigation on VibeAgent so it’s easier to find what you’re looking for quickly. We hope you find the new and improved VibeAgent.com site makes it even easier to find great hotels at the best available rates, and we look forward to servicing all your future hotel searches!

We get asked here four or five times a day, “So why should I use VibeAgent instead of, say, Orbitz or Expedia?”

I guess the answer to that question is so obvious to those of us that work in online travel, because we understand the intricacies of how the industry works.

But to you, the everyday traveler, this might not be so obvious. You just want to stay in a great hotel at the best available rate. And who can blame you! Why pay more than the guy down the hall staying in the same room?!

So, give me a few minutes of your time to lay out the case for Hotel Meta-Search. Keep reading, and I promise that what you’ll learn will save you thousands of dollars in hotel room fees, and make each and every one of your future hotel stays significantly more enjoyable.

VibeAgent searches each of our partner sites every time you use our site. This provides you with five major benefits, which I detail further below. They include: price; selection; room availability; time; and personalized recommendations.

PRICE
Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, Hotels.com, Priceline - each of these sites are what is called an Online Travel Agency, or OTA. Each OTA goes out and signs agreements directly with hotels and hotel chains to distribute their inventory on the OTA’s site. They each negotiate their commissions and specific agreements separately.

There are lots and lots of OTAs out there. You’ve probably heard of the brands I just listed, but you might not have heard of smaller niche OTAs such as TravelWorm or Agoda or Skoosh. Some of these smaller niche OTAs focus on specific hotel segments, such as independent hotels, or luxury hotels, or hotels in Las Vegas or Asia. Because they specialize, they can often negotiate even better rates for some types of hotels than the larger, more recognized OTA brands.

Also, there are two major room types in the industry; Net Rate rooms, and GDS (Global Distribution System) rooms. Net Rate rooms are negotiated specifically between the OTA and the hotel supplier. They vary from site to site. GDS rooms are rooms that are distributed via the big global distribution systems such as Sabre and Amedeus, and each OTA has access to the same rates.

So, one OTA may have negotiated a customized agreement - a Net Rate - directly with a specific hotel, whereas another OTA only has access to that hotel’s GDS room rates. In addition, an OTA may negotiate access to a specific room type (say, suites), or last minute rooms, or rooms on specific dates, etc., whereas another OTA doesn’t have the same agreement.

The bottom line is, there are lots of reasons why one OTA’s rates for a particular hotel may be different than another OTA’s rates for the same hotel. So, why would you want to risk booking a room from one OTA, when you might be able to get a better rate on the same exact room from another OTA?

Because VibeAgent searches over 20 leading travel sites every time you use our site, we can show you rates from multiple OTAs for the same hotel all on one page. The rates you see on VibeAgent are the exact rates you’d find if you searched each of our partners’ sites directly. So, by using VibeAgent’s hotel search you can be sure you’re getting the best price for the room that you’re going to book.

SELECTION
But it’s not just about pricing. Our largest partner has rates and availability for about 65,000 hotels. Because VibeAgent aggregates rates and availability from over 20 partner sites, we actually can show you rates and availability for over 120,000 hotels, almost twice as many hotels as our largest booking partner!

Remember, some of the OTAs we’ve partnered with focus on specific niches, like hotels in Las Vegas or Europe or Asia or high-end hotels or independent hotels. So when you search on VibeAgent, you’ll gain access to a much larger selection of hotels than you would searching any of our partners’ sites individually.

ROOM AVAILABILITY
As we discussed earlier, there are two major room types; GDS rooms and Net Rate rooms. While GDS rooms are centrally distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis, Net Rate rooms are distributed according to the individual agreements negotiated between an OTA and the hotel supplier. So, during busy periods, it is possible that a hotel’s GDS inventory is sold out, while a specific OTA still has availability through their Net Rate rooms. Using VibeAgent, a hotel is more likely to have availability than if you searched our partners’ sites individually.

TIME
Your time is valuable, and we know that! How long would it take you to search each of our partners’ sites individually to find the perfect hotel at the best available rate? Hours! In fact, the average travel consumer visits 4 to 10 sites every time they are looking for a hotel room.

VibeAgent’s proprietary meta-search technology and matching algorithm solves this problem by searching our partner sites and integrating their rates and availability all in one place, so you only have to come to one site - VibeAgent.com!

PERSONALIZED RECOMMENDATIONS
Finally, here’s an advantage that’s unique to VibeAgent. You can register on our site, and then post and share hotel reviews with your friends. We’ll keep track of your hotel preferences, and your friends’ hotel preferences, and integrate these social recommendations in how we display your hotel search results. So, if a friend of yours highly recommends a hotel in Paris, the next time do a search on VibeAgent for Paris, the hotel your friend recommends will appear at the top of the list of results along with a direct link to their hotel review.

Using VibeAgent, you can also tag your ideal hotel experience (e.g. Romantic, Stylish hotel with a Spa) and we’ll prioritize your search results accordingly. This way you can be sure you’re staying in the perfect hotel for you.

So, in conclusion, why wouldn’t you use VibeAgent for all your hotel searches? We hope you’ll think of us the next time you’re researching or booking a hotel room online, and feel free to help us spread the word.

Following the landmark ruling by the California Supreme Court, same-sex couples from across the country have a new reason to visit The Golden State.

Wondering what California’s top-rated gay-friendly hotels are? While we at VibeAgent do the leg work for you to find the best hotel deal on the internet, our community of savvy travelers has done the work to identify California’s top-rated gay-friendly hotels.

The top recommended romantic, same-sex friendly hotels at five of the most popular California destinations are:

San Francisco:
1) Le Meridien San Francisco
2) Clift Hotel
3) Mark Hopkins Intercontinental
4) Hotel Vitale-Embarcadero
5) Parc Fifty Five Hotel

Los Angeles:
1) Mondrian West Hollywood
2) Hyatt West Hollywood
3) Le Montrose Suite Hotel
4) W Hotel Los Angeles Westwood
5) The Beverly Hills Hotel

Santa Monica:
1) Le Merigot - A JW Marriott Beach Hotel
2) Huntley Santa Monica Beach
3) Georgian Hotel
4) Viceroy - Santa Monica
5) Shutters on the Beach

San Diego:
1) Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina
2) Hilton San Diego Gaslamp Quarter
3) Bristol Hotel
4) Hotel Del Coronado
5) Marriott San Diego Hotel and Marina

Santa Barbara:
1) Bacara Resort Spa
2) Hotel Oceana Santa Barbara

What happens when you challenge travel experts to see who really has traveled the most miles? The answer: The Ultimate Jetsetter - Blogger’s Edition!

Two weeks ago VibeAgent decided to challenge some of the most respected travel experts in the Blogosphere to log their trips on our recently launched Facebook app - Jetsetter. With nearly 20 bloggers vying for bragging rights as the Ultimate Jetsetter, the contest proved to be a telling and grueling competition!

So which blogger has truly traveled the most in the past year?

The winner is…

Tim Hughes from The BOOT (Business of Online Travel)! At a whopping 144,142 miles traveled, Tim easily surpassed his fellow bloggers. With all that traveling across the world, it’s admirable that Tim still finds time for his blog (though, we hope that he hasn’t suffered from too much jet lag!).

How did the other bloggers fare? Listed below are the rankings of the top ten Jetsetters of all the bloggers that participated in the competition.

1. Tim Hughes - The BOOT (144,142 miles)
2. Jens Thraenhart - Tourism Internet Marketing (113,828 miles)
3. Ben Mutzabaugh - USA Today’s “Today in the Sky” (56,202 miles)
4. Juliana Shallcross - Hotel Chatter (49,506 miles)
5. David Molyneaux - Travel Maven (34,250 miles)
6. Gil Zeimer - Vagablond (19,370 miles)
7. Kevin May- Travolution (18,903 miles)
8. Patti Mangan- TangoDiva (17,649 miles)
9. Chris Clarke - Vacant Ready (15,520 miles)
10. Guillaume Thevenot - Hotel Blogs 2.0 (15,050 miles)

The true question is whether or not miles traveled is any indication of blogger’s expertise in travel. You be the judge. Until then, keep Jetsetting!

I’m such a Jetsetter. I’ve traveled 29,728 miles so far within the last year, which is more than 1.2 rotations around the earth’s equator. I’ve logged 18 trips to 4 countries, and I’m the 8th most well-traveled person amongst my jetsetting friends. On all of Facebook, I fall to being the 255th most well-traveled person, amongst all jetsetters.

How do I know this? Because I downloaded the Jetsetter application for Facebook, built by….VibeAgent!

In the first month alone, we’ve had over 2,000 downloads and 10,000 trips created on Jetsetter. It’s one of the most popular travel applications on Facebook, and growing every day. Jetsetter lets you log your trips and share them with your friends, and then compete to see how many miles you’ve traveled. If you haven’t checked it out already, please do. That would be swell.

So I was in London last week for the Travolution / PhoCusWright Summit, which was a solid event. But this isn’t about the event. It’s about the Yotel.

The Yotel is coming soon to an airport near you. Founded by Simon Woodroffe (founder of all things Yo, including Yo Sushi) and Gerard Greene in 2005, Yotels are currently found in London’s Heathrow and Gatwick airports, with plans to be in Frankfurt within the year. Think of them as mini-hotels. You get just the space you need to rejuvenate yourself on a layover or after a long flight.

The beds, showers and entertainment centers are super plush - I could totally get comfortable in these “pods,” which are based on the Japanese capsule hotels. Prices run about $50 for a standard room for 4 hours, and $70 for a deluxe room (larger bed, larger room, entertainment system).

I think this is a great concept and I wish Simon and Gerard the best of luck with it. I know I’ll be staying in a Yotel the next time I have a layover in one of their airports!

I’m looking forward to attending and speaking on a panel at the Travolution Summit next week. We’ve got a great lineup of folks, including Philip Wolf from PhoCusWright, Steve Hafter of Kayak, and Ian McCaig from lastminute.com, which should make for some interesting discussions.

There’s definitely been some things happening in the meta-search space of late to talk about - namely Microsoft’s acquisition announced yesterday of Farecast for $115 million. This comes on the heels of Kayak’s acquisition of Sidestep in December.

Of course, as a meta-search site focused on the hotel space, we’re excited to see so much activity in this area - hope to see you next week in London!

We love media, yay! VibeAgent was featured today as one of seven web sites on Forbes.com that helps bring personalization to the travel process.

The inclusion featured VibeAgent as the site that helps travelers find the best hotel for their needs. For you newbies, VibeAgent provides honest hotel recommendations and compares rates from more than 30 sites to make sure you get the best possible deal when booking your hotel.

Other sites featured were TripAdvisor, Kayak, Farecast, TripIt, IGoUGo, and Inside Trip. We’re happy to be in such good company!

“Dahling…..you look Mahvelous!”

Why thank you, thank you so much!

You may have noticed by now that VibeAgent has a shiny new makeover. Our home page is brand-spanking new, and there are many new features throughout the site which we’ve been working hard to develop in response to your great feedback.

Our new home page now makes it easier for you to research and book hotels with VibeAgent.com.

We’ve added dateless searching, so you can search for rates from over 120,000 hotels in any location worldwide without entering a date for your stay. We’ve also added individual search queries, so you can now search rates and availability for individual hotels.

You’ll find the new What’s The Vibe section of our site, where we provide interesting travel recommendations from the VibeAgent community. Today you’ll see hotels recommended in Las Vegas, and spring getaway recommendations. We’ll be continuously updating this section to provide you with timely travel suggestions throughout the year.

Now you can also post your hotel review directly from the home page using the Post Review section, and see hotel recommendations for specific locations and attributes in the Top Reviewed Hotels section.

And you can meet our other community members in the Featured VibeAgent section and see their latest reviews straight from the home page.

We’ve also added quick links at the bottom of the site for the most popular city destinations to make it easier for you to quickly access the hotel content and rates that you’re looking for.

We hope you enjoy the new home page and please keep your feedback coming - we’re listening!

I had a great time in Washington D.C. this week. Charles and I were at the Masters Program, which is THE corporate travel event of the year, to learn more about the opportunities in the space and share some thoughts with others about the intersection of social media and corporate travel.

Presenters included Steve Coll, Pulitzer Prize winner and CEO of the New America Foundation, and staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, Steve Barnhart, CEO of Orbitz, and David Cash, the CEO of Virgin America.

I was honored to join such a distinguished group of speakers presenting to 250 of the leading executives in the business about Social Media. I’ve provided access to my presentation here. I think we succeeded in raising some very interesting and pertinent topics for conversation, and the whole conference was an exhilarating and valuable experience, one I shall not soon forget.

My thanks to the Board of the Masters Program for putting on a fantastic event and giving us an opportunity to be a part of it.