Earlier this week we presented at The Travel Innovation Summit at the PhoCusWright conference in Hollywood, Calif. Along with 31 other innovative companies, we gave a 10-minute demonstration of our product, which you can see here. Some of the other innovations we found interesting include:

Dealbase.com—launching at the conference and run by Sam Shank, DealBase provides the largest hotel deal Web site and clearly presented its easy to use search and filter tools. In this economy, who’s not after a deal?

Rezgo.com—run by Tips from the T-list publisher Stephen Joyce, Rezgo also launched at the conference and provides an online distribution platform for tour and activity suppliers, as well as managing payment and fulfillment. It’s a winning idea and reminds me of WorldRes when it provided a platform for the long-tail bed and breakfast market.

UpTake —Yen Lee clearly explained the semantic search capabilities that UpTake provides to simplify the travel research process through creating a comprehensive database, analyzing travelers feedback and filtering preferences. Sounds like you’d need a Ph.D. to work at UpTake—impressive!

Yapta—Tom Romary launched its frequent-flier award seat alert service, enabling travelers to be notified when they can use their frequent-flier miles to book an award seat that becomes available on a specific flight. Again, in this economy, who doesn’t want to leverage their air miles—smart move.

Of the innovators who made it through to the five minutes of fame on center stage (Home & Abroad, Wandrian, Yapta, TripIt, Triporati and IM@), it was IM@ who grabbed the attention of the judging panel. You can watch the demo featuring its mobile content management platform and mobile applications here.

In addition to presenting, we seemed to talk non-stop—to our peers at the innovation summit, interested potential partners, and press and bloggers. In the pavilion, we enjoyed the company of newly launched TravelBeen.com and particularly enjoyed Technorati’s supply of Charles Chocolates. Also, it was fun to catch up with BootsnAll, OffBeat Guides and to compare notes with our friendly Austrian competitors Tripwolf.

At the Bloggers Summit, the panel of seasoned bloggers discussed a number of topical areas relating to blogging and business—some useful tips and pit falls to avoid. It was interesting to meet up with some of the industries most respected bloggers, including The Boot, Jen Leo (Los Angeles Times), Travolution and the Cranky Flier to name a few. If you’re not following these guys, then you should be!

It’s great to see so much innovation in the travel industry up close and to be a part of it. We’re back home with many more new ideas, now it’s just a case of implementation!

At the PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit, Hollywood, Calif. We’re excited to be making a couple of new announcements.

1.    Plan-It! Widget for Bloggers

Bloggers can add the Plan-It! widget to individual blog posts, enabling their followers to save and share relevant content within the TravelMuse Planner.

The Plan-It! widget provides a solution to help travelers easily collect and centralize their research—while also increasing visibility for bloggers. Blogs that feature the Plan-It! social bookmarking widget allow visitors to quickly save content from the blog by simply clicking the Plan-It! button on any page. The content is then stored directly into the TravelMuse Planner—a centralized place to collect, organize and share travel research. Within the Planner, individuals can easily create trip plans and share the research they’ve collected with friends, family and fellow travelers—driving more traffic back to the blog postings they’ve saved. Bloggers can visits Plan-It! for Bloggers to find out more and easily add the Plan-It! button.

Sites using Plan-It include: UpTake, Ciao Bambino, Compulsive Traveler and TravelingMamas.

2.    Crowd Sourcing

This new feature provides insights into the hottest travel destinations and topics on the Web. As individuals save content into their TravelMuse Planner from TravelMuse.com and from around the Web, lists of most popular destinations and topics are generated and dynamically updated based on trip-planning behavior—view this example destination page for Barcelona to see popular bookmarks. By capturing the actions of crowds, TravelMuse can provide valuable insight reflecting the interests of travelers in real time.

See TravelMuse at the PhoCusWright Conference on stage at 10:16 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 17, or visit us at our table on Monday or Tuesday in the Laurel-Doheny rooms.

For full details click here.

In October, I traveled to Bucerias (a 30-minute drive north of Puerto Vallarta), Mexico, with my husband, daughter and husband’s parents. I’m a big fan of multigenerational travel as our extended family lives in Scotland, so we only see them once or twice a year. When they do come to visit, we find ourselves trying to return home from work at a decent hour, planning what to cook for dinner and thinking about weekend activities. Taking a trip together allows us all to relax, spend time catching up and hanging out, and enjoying the benefits of built-in babysitting!

Bucerias is a charming, low-key fishing town set on eight miles of gorgeous sandy beaches, which are frequented by locals on the weekend. The charming town center provides a great flea market, local art galleries, great restaurants and friendly locals. Bucerias has seen a lot of property development, with resorts and vacation homes still under construction—go now while it still holds its charm!

Casa Bella Vista, the house we rented, was gorgeous—we really wanted to pick it up and take it home with us! It was an airy three-bedroom house with a swimming pool, offering great views over the town and out to the Bay of Banderas, and situated only two blocks from the beach. The maid came a couple of times while we were there, and although there was an option to hire a chef, we decided to stock up at the nearby Mega (supermarket) or local mini mart and also try the local restaurants.

Our 2-year-old loved the swimming pool, but we did manage to extract her and the rest of the family for a few day trips. Hopping on the local AMT bus, we ventured into Puerto Vallarta and explored the old town and the Malecón boardwalk, noted for its metal statues and sand sculptures.

We also organized a couple of day trips through Vallarta Adventures. We took a family trip to Yelapa, a little village of less than a thousand people, which can only be reached by boat. The trip included a hike to the Cola de Caballo waterfall, time to relax on the sandy beaches, then snorkeling at Majahuitas cove on the way home. The next day, my husband and I left our wee one with her grandparents and embarked on an outdoor adventure in the heart of the Sierra Madre Mountains—move over James Bond! This was a thrill ride from start to finish—a speedboat trip to a secluded beach, followed by an off-road truck expedition, then a mule ride, followed by a series of zip lines through the jungle canopy, rappelling down waterfalls and plunging into pools. It was so much fun and I was most impressed with the professionalism and safety protocol of the guides.

In the evenings, we explored the restaurants of Bucerias, which were excellent. Close to our house were several expat-run restaurants including Mark’s Bar and Grill (Asian/Mediterranean), Sandrinas (Greek/Mexican), Espressions (British!), and Rissos (Italian). We also enjoyed Famar (Mexican with fantastic margaritas) and authentic restaurants on the beach near the town square.

We would definitely return to Bucerias. In fact, on our last day I discovered an art gallery where you could sign up for a mosaic workshop and learn to break tile, which I’d love to do with my daughter.

If you consider a trip to Bucerias, here are some points worth noting:

1. October is the rainy season—it rained a few times in the evening, and it was quite humid.

2. People will try to sell you timeshares as soon as you get off the plane. Don’t be fooled by the promise of free trips.

3. Take bug spray—you’re next to the rainforest!