TripAdvisor

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TripAdvisor

Type	Public
Founded	February 2000
Founder(s)	Stephen Kaufer
Headquarters	Newton, Massachusetts, USA
Industry	Travel services
Website	TripAdvisor.com

TripAdvisor.com is a free travel guide and research website that assists customers in gathering travel information, posting opinions of travel related issues and engaging in interactive travel forums. TripAdvisor.com is part of the TripAdvisor Media Network, operated by TripAdvisor, LLC. TripAdvisor is an example of consumer generated media. The website services are free to users, who provide most of the content, and the website makes its money from advertising, mostly from travel-related industries. ^[1]

Description

TripAdvisor Media Group operates 14 popular travel brands including TripAdvisor, Virtual Tourist, Cruise Critic, Seat Guru, TravelPod, Airfare Watchdog, Booking Buddy, Flip Key, Frequent Flier, Holiday Watchdog, Independent Traveler, Onetime, Smarter Traveler and Travel Library.

TripAdvisor operates websites internationally, including in the U.K., France, Germany, Japan, India, Italy and Spain.^[1]

TripAdvisor Media Group employed approximately 500 people as of March 2009. ^[1]

TripAdvisor Media Group is headquartered at 141 Needham Street, Newton, MA 02464.

Management Team

• Stephen Kaufer, Chief Executive Officer and Founder
• Christine Petersen, Chief Marketing Officer
• Marc Charron, Managing Director - Europe
• Andy Gelfond, Vice President - Engineering
• Robin Ingle, Senior Vice President - Advertising Sales
• Eric Rosenzweig, Senior Vice President - Strategic Development and Sales
• Bryan Saltzburg, General Manager - New Initiatives
• Tyler Young, Vice President - Finance and Administration
• David Morris, Group Corporate Counsel ^[1]

History

TripAdvisor was founded in February 2000 by Stephen Kaufer. Original financing was obtained from Flagship Ventures, the Bollard Group and private investors. The company was purchased by InterActive Corporation in 2004. IAC spun off its travel group of businesses under the Expedia, Inc. name in August 2005.^[2] In July 2008, TripAdvisor bought Virtualtourist, a travel website with over 1 million registered members.^[3]

TripAdvisor has been criticized for allowing reviews to be posted by anyone about any hotel, without needing supporting evidence.^[4] In response, they claim that all reviews are moderated by their staff,^[5] and they have algorithms to detect abuse.^[6]

Website features

• TripAdvisor Flight Search with Fee Estimator: Offers travelers the largest inventory of flights with the best deals available and a first-of-its-kind fees estimator that helps travelers understand the true cost of a flight in a single display. Fees estimator calculates and compares the entire cost of a domestic flight, including ticket price, fees for checked luggage and even anticipated in-flight food service and entertainment, based on the traveler’s needs. TripAdvisor’s ground-breaking flight search also features SeatGuru airline seating maps with user reviews, real-time seat availability charts, and TripTip! Alerts when business-class or first-class tickets are available for a price close to the coach fare.
• Reviews: Hotel, restaurant and attraction rankings found on the site are based largely on user-generated reviews.
• Traveler Articles: A wiki (based on a clusterized version of XWiki) in which users can add information on destinations as a way to aid potential visitors. Topics include transportation, activities and dining guides.
• Candid Photos: Gives a “behind-the-scenes” view of hotels around the world and lets you contribute your own snapshots.
• Video: Makes it easy for you to post vacation videos and for travel marketers to showcase their properties by featuring their videos on TripAdvisor for free. Videos can be as long as 10 minutes each, and can be uploaded in AVI, Quicktime, Windows Media or MPEG4 formats.
• Hotel Popularity Index: Dynamically ranks hotels worldwide based on the popularity of a given hotel, as measured by both the quantity and quality of content written about the hotel on TripAdvisor and across the Web.
• Top Values Index: An easy way to sort the most popular hotels around the world to quickly find great values today. Enabling travelers to get the most bang for their buck, Top Values are 31 percent less expensive than all hotels listed on TripAdvisor and are updated daily to reflect the most recent prices and quality ratings.
• Quick Guides: Gives travelers a quick downloadable and printable guide that lists the top-rated hotels, restaurants and attractions for 13,000+ of the most popular destinations in the world.
• goLists: Lists of places and activities compiled by users and usually on travel "themes", such as must-see attractions, stops on a walking tour or ideas for a rainy day.
• Maps: A hotel map mashup combining TripAdvisor's hotel popularity index with Google Maps.
• Forums: Message boards where travelers ask and answer destination and interest based travel-related questions.
• Restaurants: Featuring more than 551,000 restaurants in 24,000 cities with more than 2 million ratings and reviews as well as maps, filters and links to make reservations. Travelers can sort and search restaurants by price, cuisine type and “recommended for” to find their preferred eatery.
• Gas Tank Getaways: Provides travelers with vacation destination options that are a tank of gas or less away from home. Based on the travelers’ starting location and how much gas they want to use for their trip, the tool then provides up to five destination suggestions within the chosen fuel range, showing the places that are the most highly rated by TripAdvisor travelers.
• Inside Pages: Allows millions of travelers to view, contribute to and edit the freshest travel “guidebooks” available on more than 33,000 destinations worldwide, using wiki functionality.

References

External links

• TripAdvisor.com