Launch of YourTour.Com Beta Version: an Innovative Tool for Planning Tailor-Made Travel

MONS, Belgium-(Business Wire)-September 16, 2009 - After many years of research and development, YourTour.com, the tailor-made travel planning website, was officially launched at the prestigious “TechCrunch50” conference, dedicated to start-up companies, which took place in San Francisco on September 14 & 15, 2009. Acting as a “Personal Travel Agent”, the YourTour.com website is now open to the public in beta version. The innovative YourTour technology, developed by DeciZium, assists travelers by automatically generating complete travel itineraries in accord with their personal preferences, wishes, and limitations.

A powerful, yet easy-to-use tool

After answering a few basic questions, such as destination and travel dates, the traveler receives an initial trip proposal, including a detailed day-by-day itinerary. The trip proposal recommends area attractions, in a logical order, along with accommodations, and provides precise routing between locations using Google maps. The traveler has the option of interactively customizing the initial trip proposal by specifying more preferences (budget, activity types, specific attractions or hotels, etc.) and requesting a new trip proposal. Once the traveler is satisfied with the trip proposal, he is only a simple click away from booking it.

Complex and innovative technology

The YourTour decision support system is driven by a sophisticated computation engine, which exploits the power of Amazon’s cloud computing servers. YourTour’s mathematical algorithm takes into account hotel availability, driving time, attractions’ opening days and hours, as well as other elements, to create a trip proposal that best suits the individual traveler, whether they are looking for the most economical offer, or building their dream trip. This one of a kind technology is the fruit of more than ten years of applied mathematical research.

High profile partners, including Lonely Planet and Booking.com

At this stage, YourTour.com enables users to plan self-guided driving tours in France, based on information from travel books publisher, Lonely Planet, and in partnership with Booking.com, Europe’s largest online hotel reservations provider. Other countries, such as Spain, Italy, and the USA (Florida), will be added in the coming months, along with new features.

“YourTour.com represents a new way to plan trips on the Internet. We are very happy that we could integrate the digital content of Lonely Planet France in this ambitious project.”

— Frédérique Sarfati, General Manager, Lonely Planet France

An offer for tourism professionals

YourTour’s technology is also being marketed as a white label solution for various travel industry professionals, so that tourism offices, tour operators, hotel chains, and other travel businesses can offer tailor-made self-drive tours to their clients through their own websites. Currently, a pilot application is being developed for the tour operator BEST tours, an indisputable specialist of faraway travel destinations.

“YourTour technology will represent significant time savings for our tailor-made travel department.”

— Stefan Boone, Managing Director, BEST tours

Recognition at numerous international events

DeciZium has been selected for several prestigious international conferences focused on the Internet and innovation. The company was the only Belgian start-up present at the 2008 World Investment Conference in La Baule, France, and in 2009 at The Next Web conference in Amsterdam. DeciZium was one of only thirty companies invited to present its technology at the PhoCusWright “Travel Innovation Summit” in Los Angeles in November 2008. In Spring 2009, it also presented YourTour.com at the “PhoCusWright @ ITB” conference in Berlin.

About DeciZium

Created in 2004, DeciZium (DeciZium.com), is a spin-off of the Faculté polytechnique de Mons (Mons Polytechnic University), and specializes in decision support technology and services. Its flagship product is the YourTour solution, which has received generous financial backing from the Wallonia Region (R&D support) in Belgium. The public website, YourTour.com, is the first commercial application of this technology. DeciZium Inc., a Silicon Valley subsidiary in San José, California, is marketing YourTour in the USA. Currently, DeciZium is conducting a new round of financing to accelerate development of YourTour.