Monday, January 06, 2014

Rome2rio: Planning Ahead


Rome2rio is a really useful door-to-door travel search engine that uses Google Maps to help you search for travel itineraries to and from any location by air, train, coach and / or driving.

Recently Rome2rio discovered a rather neat method of identifying locations around the world where they could expand their coverage. Using Sightsmap Rome2rio are able to see where in the world the most Panoramio photos have been taken.

Sightsmap is a searchable heatmap based on the number of photographs submitted to Panoramio at different locations around the world. It is a very good guide to some of the most favorite tourist locations in the world. For Rome2rio it therefore provides a useful guide to locations where their users are likely to want to travel.

Rome2rio decided to overlay a Rome2rio coverage map over the Sightsmap heat map (pictured above). This helped them visualize where their coverage was strong and where it could be improved.  This mapped comparison of Rome2rio coverage with the Sightsmap heat map helped identify areas such as Cuba, Iceland, Jamaica and northern Tunisia that Rome2rio can now develop going forward.

Via: The Rome2rio Blog

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