An interesting issue you raise, with which I wholeheartedly agree, is that "social discovery" isn't always the best answer to any question. For some categories it makes a lot of sense. For plenty more categories, it's a novelty at best, and the utility is questionable.
IMO, the best way to make travel "social" is to make social travel easier, viz., make organizing trips for groups easier. That's a legitimate problem to solve.
Perhaps, but I'd counter that with the trip I just planned I didn't need a tool to do it. I shared a google doc with a friend for one and had a couple skype calls. For another I just went over to her house and we figured out the dates, where we wanted to go etc. Her roommate might come now, as a friend whose in London. That is "social trip planning" but I'm not sure what framework, and there are a bunch out there, could help make that easier. A lot of it is serendipity based, and the logistics weren't that difficult in the first place.
The "where do we want to go and when?" question isn't the hard part, though. It's finding venues and flights with the best group rates and windows. It's not so much the front-end logistics and discovery aspect that's challenging; it's the back-end logistics. Especially as the group increases in size.
I don't think any app is going to effectively take choice and discussion out of the equation. Attempting to do that, especially with a category like leisure travel, is asking people to let an algorithm plan their vacations. Most people won't go for that; they want a large degree of choice and consideration in the process. But the stuff nobody likes doing -- planning flights, searching for fares, booking rooms, etc. -- is where the pain points reside.
Oh I agree. I guess I thought you were referring to a lot of these "comprehensive social trip planning" tools that help you collaborate on a trip. I think they are useless. I agree it's the problems like "ok, how do we get from Prague to Vienna" now that me and my buddy decided we want to go that are truly the hard part.
Something that could be solved with better search would be group travel for people originating in different cities. Call it "travel search for LDRs". I am in city X, someone else is in city Y, what are some other cities that we can all fly to for N overlapping days at a minimum total cost?
IMO, the best way to make travel "social" is to make social travel easier, viz., make organizing trips for groups easier. That's a legitimate problem to solve.