Facebook looks to enter the travel market with the launch of City Guides.

Have Facebook, Will Travel

At this point, we shouldn’t be surprised. Facebook has demonstrated a consistent desire to make itself integral to virtually all aspects of daily life.

Their latest addition takes them into one of the few territories they’d yet to fully exploit: Travel.

While its pretty common practise for people to use Facebook to ask their friends for recommendations while on their travels, so far there has been no integrated FB functionality for serving this need.

That’s changing with Facebook City Guides

Follow in the footsteps of your friends

Residing within the ‘More’ menu on your Facebook app, City Guides provides users with a list of cities, a list of friends who have visited them and the places they’ve visited in those cities.

The City Guides point of difference is that it aims for a very personal angle. The highlighted spots are largely based on the travels of people you know—where they’ve been, stayed or eaten.

While that’s an intriguing take on a travel recommendation service, the potential downside is that if you don’t have many globe-trotting friends, you might not have a wealth of personalised info on which to draw.

Of course, Facebook has recognised that possible limitation. To help offset it, the guides also include a list of ‘Places the Locals Go’—essentially a list of the most popular and best-reviewed places in a given city.

So far the City Guides feature hasn’t been made available for everyone, but it’s in the works.

Copy Transmission is a Melbourne-based agency :: Better Brands. Loud & Clear.