Mobissimo launches activity search tool

Billing it as “the biggest thing to hit travel since free booze,” travel search engine Mobissimo has officially launched Activity Search. Because the new tool doesn’t require users to specify a destination, Mobissimo seems to be blazing a trail here. Time will tell if Activity Search lives up to its hype.

Using Activity Search is easy enough. Users enter their departure city and travel dates, and choose from a dropdown menu of 20 activities. Based on that information, Mobissimo generates a list of destinations and available activities, (Cuzco, Peru, and “Inca Trail, Machu Picchu,” for example). Up to three destinations can be selected and Mobissimo will display a list of airfares to the destinations, with links for booking on the providers’ sites.

How does Mobissimo’s Activity Search work in practice? I searched for “trekking” vacations in July and got 32 choices back. Of these, many looked appealing, but I found it odd that only three of the destinations were in the U.S., considering the wealth of national parks and hiking opportunities in the country. A similar search for “museums” returned a nice selection of 14 destinations, though again only three were in this country.

While it’s clearly helpful in suggesting destinations for particular activities, Mobissimo doesn’t actually assist travelers in booking activities, such as tours or packages. For that, Travelocity’s own activity search tool can come in handy.

Still, there’s no doubt that Activity Search is on the right track, and will be very useful to those who know what they want to do but aren’t sure where to do it. With a few tweaks to the search functionality, Mobissimo could make it even better.