TripAdvisor

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

TripAdvisor screenshot.

TripAdvisor.com is a free travel guide and research website that offers unbiased opinions to help plan a vacation.

1 Description
2 History
3 Business model
4 Major products
5 External links
6 References

[edit] Description

The site covers over 200,000 hotels and attractions in 30,000 destinations worldwide. The site features reviews written by travelers, links to relevant travel articles from newspapers, magazines and travel guidebooks, and has a very active traveler forum area (bulletin boards).

TripAdvisor.com is currently the largest global travel information and advice destination on the web, covering 200,000+ hotels and attractions. With more than 5 million reviews and opinions and ~20 million site visitors a month, TripAdvisor is also the largest travel community on the web.

[edit] History

TripAdvisor was founded in February 2000, and was purchased by InterActive Corporation in 2004. Original financing was obtained from Flagship Ventures, the Bollard Group, and private investors. TripAdvisor is now part of the Expedia, Inc. family of travel companies. For the month of November 2005, the site logged approximately 14 million unique visitors, according to ComScore/MediaMetrix.

[edit] Business model

TripAdvisor, free to consumers, is supported by an advertising model. Clients include most major online travel agencies, including Expedia, Hotels.com, Orbitz, Hotwire, Priceline, Travelocity and many travel suppliers, such as InterContinental, Hyatt, and American Airlines.

[edit] Major products

Hotel/Attraction/Restaurant reviews: In many ways the foundation of TripAdvisor, TripAdvisor has reviews and opinions on over 200,000 hotels, attractions, and restaurants. These reviews form the base of all site indexing and ranking, where the hotels, attractions and restaurants are rated and ranked by the collective opinions of individual traveler experiences.

Travel wiki: TripAdvisor Inside A wiki-type product (based on a clusterized version of XWiki) in which users can add factual information on destinations as a way to aid potential vacationers. Inside is a real-time guidebook -- written and edited by real travelers. Topics include transportation, activities and dining guides.

goLists: Compilations of places and activities as experienced by travelers. For example, must see attractions, stops on a walking tour, ideas for a rainy day.

Forums: In TripAdvisor forums, travelers are asking and answering thousands of destination and interest based travel-related questions every day.

TripAdvisor maps: A hotel map "mashup" combining TripAdvisor's hotel popularity index with Google Maps. Examples: New York City, Walt Disney World, Las Vegas

[edit] References

About Us. TripAdvisor. Retrieved on January 3, 2006.

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