brian's blog

We're delighted to be featured in The New York Times yesterday! In an article titled New Role for Travel Sites: Matchmaker, NYT wrote about Zicasso and our solution to act as a free matchmaking service for vacationers in search of traditional travel agents. She also reported on an interesting survey conducted by Forrester Research: 23% of online leisure travelers in the United States say they would use a good travel agent if they could find one.

Well, Zicasso is absolutely the right place to find great travel agents -- from the very beginning of our company, we decided that we only want to work with the best. We spent over a thousand hours over the last two years doing our homework on finding some of the best travel agents to be our partners. Our screening process included getting referrals from trusted sources, interviewing the travel agencies or tour operators on their destination knowledge, checking that travel agents have traveled to the destinations which they sell, checking online forums, BBB, and ASTA to ensure that there are no complaints, etc. As a result, Zicasso has now built a network of highly qualified travel agents and tour operators that are ready to serve discerning travelers within our online Web 2.0 environment -- to provide personalized service that will make your trip truly special and truly hassle-free.

In other words, we've done the homework on finding the best agents, so you don't have to. And these agents will do the homework on planning and booking your perfect trip, so you don't have to!

It's been a busy week of press coverage for Zicasso--we were also featured in MSNBC, Travel Weekly, and Tripso.

Brian K.Y. Tan

Founder and CEO

Zicasso

We’ve just put out a new press release on destinations which help travelers stretch their dollars, and our new partners who specialize in these destinations. To help travelers get the most out of the weak dollar and rising prices, we’re highlighting six countries which give good value…and we’ve put together country pages which give essential information on each country, from the best times to visit to budget recommendations to inspiring sample trips.

We're pleased that the Wall Street Journal featured Zicasso in an article on page D1 today, titled Online Help for Trip Planning. The article describes online solutions that help travelers who don't have time to research and plan a vacation. And that, of course, is exactly why Zicasso exists: To provide personalized, hassle-free trip planning for busy, discerning travelers!

During our first two months, Zicasso, together with our network of quality travel company partners, have helped numerous travelers plan and book complex itineraries to every continent…yes, even to Antarctica! If you have a good idea of your destination country, it's simple to get started on Zicasso -- simply fill out a Trip Request, and we'll get you matched with up to three travel companies whose experts will submit itinerary bids for all the services you need. Each itinerary is carefully designed and personalized to your needs by an expert agent.

Or, if you'd first like to start with browsing sample itineraries to get inspiration on where to go and things to do, you can check out Zicasso's Sample Trips. The Wall Street Journal article mentioned Zicasso along with a few websites as sources of sample itineraries generated by their user communities. However, unlike other sites, the Sample Trips on Zicasso were developed by professional experts at our travel company partners – each itinerary can be further refined, customized, and then booked. I invite you to check out our directory listing of these Sample Trips and get inspired to take that special dream trip!

Brian K.Y. Tan
Founder and CEO
Zicasso

Zicasso is ideal for busy, discerning travelers who want help to plan a complex trip. There’s a lot of flexibility on the types of travel arrangements available. Here’s an overview of the choices, together with some of my own experiences. Knowing what works best for you makes your planning more efficient.

Zicasso can be used to plan and book completely customized trips or fixed packages, depending on your needs. The main types of travel arrangements our travel companies can offer include:

• Independent travel, customized – Only accommodations and transportation needed, no guides needed. Itinerary is typically a completely customized to your needs. This is sometimes also called “self drive tours”




• Independent travel, fixed components (also known as “vacation packages”) – Similar to the independent travel above but with fixed trip components (e.g. 5 days / 4 nights with specific flight + hotel + car rental). Not customizable




• Private guided tour – Customized tour with a guide, just for you and your party




• Escorted group tour – Packaged guided tour in which you join a group of other travelers on a fixed departure date




• Others / Specialized Trips: these include Safaris, Adventure Tours, Nature Tours, Eco Tours, Study Tours, and Cruises

Welcome! After almost two years of hard work, we are truly excited to announce that Zicasso is finally here to fill a gap in online tri p planning and booking: To make the experience both personalized and hassle-free. That is the core of what we do, and we welcome your feedback and suggestions.

Let me first share some background of how we got here. My co-founder, Yuchun Ku (also my wife), and I share travel as our common passion. I’ve been to 38 countries and she’s been to 45. Throughout our travels, we found that when it comes to taking a simple trip, say we’re going from San Francisco to London and just need one flight and one hotel, we can book them quite easily online. However, for anything more complex—say we’re planning a two-week trip to visit various places in India or Peru or Spain—it can often take us over 40 hours to plan and book things online. On top of that, we couldn’t book many of the needed services online. Like tour guides, or if we needed train or bus or ferry tickets, or if we wanted to make sure we have tickets to a popular water puppet show in Vietnam….

For any food lover, Malaysia is a paradise offering a gastronomic adventure like no where else. There are at least two factors which make Malaysian food so special and so, so good! First, the country has been a melting pot of three cultures which introduced its own rich history of great cuisine: Malay, Chinese, and Indian. So you can get great food from any of these three cultures in Malaysia, plus a fusion of them, creating tantalizing and creative combinations of spices and cooking techniques. Second, Malaysians are obsessed with food; arguably food is the country’s # 1 passion. This has created very high standards and competition amongst food vendors, from restaurants to street-side hawkers—word gets out quickly on whether a dining spot is good or mediocre, and patronage level adjusts just as quickly.

OK, so we didn’t just lie on the beach the whole time at Langkawi! We spent a day with Irshad Mobarak and his excellent nature tour company, Junglewalla. When Yuchun and I travel, we enjoy mixing in wildlife and nature exploration along with culture, history, and beaches. Langkawi offers impressive biodiversity for nature lovers since the island has beaches, mangroves, rainforests, and tall limestone hills. It’s also home to over 200 species of birds, many of which are quite colorful.

We were fortunate to have Irshad as our guide. His passion as a conservationist really came out as he generously shared his extensive knowledge about the environment, the mangroves, birds, animals, and plants of Langkawi. He was entertaining as well, e.g. when he went into how the sea eagles find their mate for life!

In a dramatic change of pace from start-up life in Silicon Valley, Yuchun and I just spent four days in Langkawi—an idyllic island paradise in the northeast tip of Malaysia. A great beginning to our three weeks of travel in Southeast Asia over the holidays, covering Malaysia, Laos, and Cambodia.

“Wow, that’s a cool shot! Where is that?” That seems to be a common question for everyone looking at that caravan of camels on our home page. One of our community members, Dexter D., took that photo while traveling on an escorted tour in Morocco and has the following description of it:

Hey folks, welcome to Zicasso’s blog. We’ll be using this blog to post information about our company as well as share travel tips and insights from us and travel experts from different parts of the world. This is also where we’ll post random musings on the state of the travel industry, technology, and personal updates. It’s a good place for you to interact with us and leave comments.

“So what is Zicasso all about? Yet another online travel website?,” you might be asking. Well, yes…but a rather unique one! I’m really excited to tell you all about it. But it’s kind of hard, like really hard, to talk about what our solution is before we launch. So first, I’ll talk about what problems we want to solve.