Planning a Trip Around COVID Restrictions? This App Can Help
“Where can I go?” employs search algorithms and travel experts to prepare individual travelers for the uncertainties of COVID restrictions.
Thomas J. Story
Are you a bit confused about planning adventures around pandemic-related restrictions? A travel app wants to be of service, thanks to a new feature designed to help you with this very predicament.
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Origin, a travel company that bills itself as an end-to-end service that eliminates the need to jump from travel site to travel site, recently announced the launch of a “Where can I go?” feature, which employs a combination of personally-driven search algorithms and a network of travel experts to prepare you for the myriad uncertainties and evolving regulations, per destination, stemming from COVID-19.
“We started thinking on how to combine industry knowledge with personal preferences that users share with us,” Origin co-founder and CEO Eli Bressert said in a release. “We looked at solutions out in the market but none of them give you recommendations tailored to your needs. That’s where we saw an opportunity to further empower travelers.”
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The personalized travel feature, available for free in the Origin app, allows you to input items like vaccination status and restriction preferences—being OK with, or wanting to avoid, mandatory quarantines, for example—to furnish search results that meet your exact needs.
To keep relevant information up to date, the in-app feature is updated on a daily basis. Also provided is a weekly collection of destinations that, following any policy modifications or loosening of restrictions, have shifted to meet a particular traveler’s preferences.
“We created Origin because modern travel has become extremely complicated and we believe that transformational travel allows people to live out their dreams,” Bressert said. “The barrier of travel planning, the time it consumes, and insider knowledge on destinations are holding people back from maximizing their travel experiences. Origin removes all those obstacles and makes the end-to-end experience a breeze.”
While free to download and use, a full-service Origin membership, designed for the luxury traveler who wants unlimited inspiration, end-to-end trip-planning and revisions, 24/7 support, and booking all taken care of in one place, runs $3,000 per year.
Learn more about the Origin app here, or download the app on iOS.
