Over 135,000 hotels and B&Bs will be able to benefit from TripAdvisor Connect, a new platform coming soon for independent accommodation businesses.
NEWTON, MA – TripAdvisor announced that 210 Internet booking engines have signed up in anticipation of the site’s game-changing online platform, TripAdvisor Connect, scheduled to launch later this year. The number of committed booking engines means that more than 135,000 hotels and B&Bs worldwide will be able to participate in Hotel Price Comparison on TripAdvisor.
Initial commitment for TripAdvisor Connect has exceeded company expectations, with booking engines from 48 countries already on board. The announcement has also generated interest from industry opinion leaders.
Jay Karen, President and CEO of the Professional Association of Innkeepers International, welcomes the development: “Currently it seems that millions of TripAdvisor visitors may bypass B&Bs when searching by dates of stay, because there has been no connectivity to nearly all of the inventory in our industry. This initiative looks to be a big step forward.”
“We’re delighted to have such an international range of Internet booking engines on board for the launch of TripAdvisor Connect. The enthusiastic response from over 200 Internet booking engines from 48 countries shows that they realize this will be a powerful new way for their clients to generate incremental bookings,” says Jean-Charles Lacoste, TripAdvisor’s Vice President of Direct Connect Solutions. “We anticipate signing up even more Internet booking engines over the next few weeks and we look forward to enabling so many independent accommodation owners to generate new bookings.”
TripAdvisor has devised a tiered certification process for Internet booking engines to offer their clients:
- TripAdvisor Connect – hotels and B&Bs can bid for TripAdvisor meta search traffic
- TripAdvisor Connect Plus – hotels and B&Bs can bid for TripAdvisor meta search traffic and automate review collection efforts using TripAdvisor’s Review Express service, which will be integrated into the platform
- TripAdvisor Connect Premium – hotels and B&Bs can bid for traffic, automate review collection and track the results of their activity to measure their return on investment.
As of today, close to 90 percent of the committed 210 Internet booking engines will be TripAdvisor Connect Premium partners. TripAdvisor Connect will enable Business Listings subscribers to provide real-time availability and online booking to travelers researching on TripAdvisor via their booking engines.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
