You have done a thorough research. So, you know better than us. Its a great idea. So, sharing it on the internet can cause theft of your idea. However, given the positive community this is, I doubt any harm. I really like your idea. You should conduct more thorough research via questionnaire and conducting survey of people’s opinion on what all features they expect in such a site. Check your budget and go for it.

I know I would be weary of posting my budget into a site. I wouldn’t trust them to give me an accurate price. Here’s an example of the kind of thing I would be concerned about: I enter a $2,000 budget, and the site finds results for $1,500 internally but list it to me priced at $1,950 and pockets that extra $450 margin.

Well, I think there IS room for new/different travel assistant software/sites/apps/whatevers. Usually when I use them, I immediately wish they were engineered differently, had different assumptions and limits, and presented information differently and/or different information.

I think your idea is good enough to do more market research on. I’m not typical, but I would try your site, but also it offers some things that I personally don’t usually want. That is, I usually know where I want to go. Also I’d want strong solemn guarantees that you were not going to abuse or sell the information I was giving you about my budget (because that’s clearly abusable by the service provider in many ways).

Based on my experience in the tech world, it would be an uphill climb and very hard to fund. There are already so many players in that space that establishing a new one would be very difficult. Your best bet is to take your idea to an existing player in that arena and pitch it as a differentiator. Note: Have your presentation in writing, copyright it and date it.