Whole Travel Launches and Shifts the Paradigm for Online Travel With Revolutionary “Blue Sky” Search Technology

Breakthrough Search and Navigation Technology Combines With the Green Movement, Creates the Web’s Most Comprehensive Portal for Sustainable Travel

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Whole Travel (www.wholetravel.com) launches and announced today that it is the first online travel site to provide “blue sky” search functionality for consumers looking to discover the world’s most amazing destinations while being environmentally and socially responsible.

“By making sustainable travel even easier to find than traditional travel opportunities, we’re greening the travel industry one trip at a time.”

Whole Travel’s website shifts the paradigm of online travel search, which is typically constrained by dates and specific locations, by enabling and encouraging consumers to enter search terms that represent the experiences they seek around the world – for example, “organic coffee farm” or “remote mountain trekking”. Built on a database of more than 4,000 of the world’s boutique and sustainable hotels and resorts that are difficult to find through any other resource, Whole Travel provides inspiration and discovery for travelers unsatisfied with just an ordinary vacation.

“Sustainability is a meta-trend that is hitting all consumer markets, and it’s not showing any signs of slowing. Travel is the world’s largest employer, so we found an opportunity to make a difference by providing travelers with unique, relevant information and direct access to booking, at no cost to them,” says Matthew Davie, CEO of Whole Travel. “By making sustainable travel even easier to find than traditional travel opportunities, we’re greening the travel industry one trip at a time.”

At launch, Whole Travel is the easiest portal for researching, comparing and directly booking these unique and difficult to find travel opportunities. Instead of spending hours scanning the internet or hundreds of general travel sites, WholeTravel.com enables users to quickly identify travel opportunities through a novel blue sky search technology, refine their searches according to criteria that matter to them, and quickly connect with resorts and hotels worldwide. Whole Travel also allows users the opportunity to provide input and feedback to help others make better, more informed shopping decisions.

Whole Travel’s features include:

• Blue Sky Search – Users are encouraged to search for experiences such as “organic coffee farm” and “remote mountain trekking” instead of being constrained by traditional criteria such as dates and locations, allowing discovery of new opportunities.
• Sustainability – All of our 4,000 resorts are sustainable, with a simple and clear evaluation system used to rank each on a 1-5 scale. The ranking system, Whole Ranking®, looks at four categories: environmental practices, economic management, social and cultural support, and customer interaction.

• Visual Navigation – Users can browse more than 20,000 photos for inspiration as they narrow down their searches and find the ideal trip.
• One-stop-shop – Users can find everything from resorts and hotels, flights, travel guides, expert blogs and customer reviews at WholeTravel.com.

About Whole Travel

Whole Travel (www.wholetravel.com) is the first online travel portal using blue sky search to help consumers discover sustainable travel opportunities. The website constantly searches the globe to bring together thousands of unique, undiscovered and sustainable travel opportunities in an easy-to-navigate platform that helps users research, compare and book this unique type of travel. Whole Travel has a team of experts in sustainability, technology, Web search, consumer services and social media working to create a world-class research and booking experience. Whole Travel is located in Palo Alto, California and is privately funded. To access the Web’s most unique and sustainable travel opportunities, or to learn more, visit our website at www.wholetravel.com.