Tripadvisor zeroes in on independent hotels
Tripadvisor is in the process of signing up independent hotels to its instant booking platform.
The $US10 billion ($A13 billion) travel review company, the largest in the world, needs more independent hotels to support its growth strategy and rollout of its product which went live in Australia last year.
This comes after Tripadvisor has secured the support of eight of the world’s 10 biggest hotel brands. That included bringing Marriott International on board as a distribution partner and getting Priceline Group’s booking.com to sign an agreement to use the platform.
“Today, we have eight of the top 10 hotel brands in the world and we’re continuing to expand our partnerships with large hotel chains, online travel agencies and with more independent hotels,’’ Tripadvisor global chief executive, Stephen Kaufer told The Australian.
“Travellers can now book more than 500,000 hotels on TripAdvisor.
“As of Q2 of this year, we were live to substantively all our major markets and look forward to continuing our expansion of instant booking with more partners.’’
Tripadvisor’s aggressive push into this space comes at a time when higher than expected sales and marketing expenses are creating a drag on the bottom of the line of the travel review industry.
Investors in the US have hammered the shares of TripAdvisor, Priceline and Expedia amidst warnings from analysts about the threat to the industry posed by Airbnb.
Mr Kaufer was having none of that and insisted the market was big enough to accommodate all players.
“Airbnb has built a nice ecosystem. We believe that the more choices consumers have the –better,’’ he said. “That’s why TripAdvisor offers travellers the option to book a wide range of lodging experiences from hotels and bed and breakfasts to vacation rentals.
“There’s certainly plenty of room in the travel industry for different types of accommodation to cater to different trip and traveller needs.’’
by Leon Gettler, 2nd November 2016