Wikipedia launches new travel site

Zeenews Bureau

San Francisco: Wikimedia Foundation, the creators of Wikipedia, on Tuesday rolled out a free online travel guide, Wikivoyage.Org, dedicated to providing free information on destinations, itineraries, phrasebooks and maps. The travel guide debuts with 50,000 articles in more than half a dozen languages. "There`s a huge global demand for travel information, but very few sources are both comprehensive and non-commercial," Wikimedia Foundation executive director Sue Gardner said in a release. "That`s about to change." The site originally launched as Wikitravel in 2006 and supported by a German non-profit association by the same name, joined the Wikimedia family in October 2012 and has been in beta since November. "The purpose of the Wikivoyage Association is to promote education and knowledge of all countries and regions in the world, as well as understanding among nations," said association board chairman Stefan Fussan. "We`re very excited about the launch of Wikivoyage as a Wikimedia project." Wikivoyage content is written by travelers, for travelers, in native languages, according to project administrator Peter Fitzgerald. With Agency inputs