Nile Guide wants to be your concierge

Nile Guide on Monday formally announced that it's entered the crowded but fast-growing online travel market with a service that combines recommendations with trip-planning and booking.

The company is looking to take advantage of the preferences of Internet users who want to plan and book their trip with one site, rather than going to separate ones for booking hotels, flights and dinner reservations.

NileGuide allows users to type in the name of a city and plan an entire trip, through its own service and by accessing data from CitySearch, Open Table and Trip Advisor.

The company's executive team includes Josh Steinitz, formerly of Away.com (bought by Orbitz) and John Monson, who was VP of Marketing at Intuit when it was building the brand for the financial software Quicken.

NileGuide's launch just days after Conde Naste said it would buy SFO Media, which operates the popular travle blogs hotelchatter.com and jaunted.com.

The travel category is one of the fastest-growing and profitable niches on the Web.