Online travel firm launches a destination matchmaker

MyTravel.com, the online travel portal, is rolling out a new interactive tool, called the MyTravel Holiday Matchmaker, to help consumers find holiday destinations based on suggestions from like-minded people.

Holiday Matchmaker asks consumers to choose an image that reflects their response to a series of questions. Once they have completed the questionnaire, consumers are offered a list of destinations that like-minded consumers have suggested. The service uses a psychological profiling tool developed by technology company Synature.

The tool, called Qubox, helps MyTravel to discover how online consumers feel about a product, service or piece of Web content. It aims to uncover the language that consumers use when they think about particular products or scenarios, homing in on those aspects of the information that are important to the customer, enabling the company to use this information to target consumers more effectively.

Synature chief executive John Woods says that with the rise of social networking sites putting users firmly in control, marketers have had to find another solution to increase the efficacy of their campaigns. He adds: “Synature helps companies to greatly improve their customer segmentation and targeting techniques.

“Using theory from academic psychological research, Synature has developed a revolutionary way for companies to market to online customers, increasing responses to campaigns by between 20% and 80%.”