TripAdvisor, the world's largest travel community, today announced its official entree into the French and German travel markets with the unveiling of http://www.tripadvisor.fr/ and http://www.tripadvisor.de/.

The sites feature localized travel information and local-language reviews and forum postings, in addition to TripAdvisor's more than 5 million reviews and opinions from travelers worldwide.

"TripAdvisor.de and .fr mark a major milestone in our global deployment," said Marc Charron, managing director for TripAdvisor Europe. "Travel is a global pastime and TripAdvisor represents the views, opinions and interests of travelers around the world, and we recognise that there are also important differences between nationalities. Travel planning and sharing information is one of the top uses of the web in both France and Germany and this initiative will provide those travelers with both unparalleled global access and a local focus."

More than half of TripAdvisor's 20 million monthly visitors are from outside the U.S. and one-third are from Europe. "By launching these localized sites, TripAdvisor is demonstrating its commitment to the European market," added Charron.

Approximately two million travelers from France and Germany already visit tripadvisor.com monthly, indicating interest in TripAdvisor's unique offering. France and Germany are an integral part of the TripAdvisor global community, and the company expects to see rapid growth in these markets, with the debut of localized sites.

TripAdvisor offers prospective partners effective cost-per-click and graphical ad marketing platforms for reaching a highly targeted and valuable audience. The company's European office is in London.

  Key features available on www.tripadvisor.de and www.tripadvisor.fr:

  -- Hotel Reviews -- to help travelers make the most informed decisions
     about their accommodations, there are more than 5 million traveler
     reviews and opinions with thousands of local-language reviews focused
     on thousands of hotels in the most popular travel destinations.
  -- Hotel Popularity Index -- the first index of its kind to dynamically
     rank 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.
  -- Advanced Hotel Selection Tool -- enables travelers to easily view a
     destination's most popular hotels by price, neighborhood and star
     class.
  -- Check Rates -- a unique tool that, with one click, checks hotel pricing
     and availability across multiple vendor commerce sites.
  -- Candid Traveler Photos -- 650,000 traveler-submitted photos covering
     approximately 45,000 top hotels around the world.
  -- Forums -- For up-to-the minute advice from real travelers, TripAdvisor
     forums cover 24,000 destinations worldwide.  If you don't find exactly
     what you're looking for, post a question and often get a response in
     real-time.

  About TripAdvisor LLC

Tripadvisor, LLC, the largest travel community in the world, attracts more than 24 million monthly visitors (source: comScore Media Metrix, Digital Calculator Report, March 2007) across seven popular travel brands, TripAdvisor(R) sites, bookingbuddy(TM).com, cruisecritic(TM).com, seatguru(R).com, smartertravel(TM).com, travelpod(TM).com and travel-library(TM).com(TM). Tripadvisor.com features real advice from real travelers, with more than 5 million unbiased reviews and opinions, covering 260,000+ hotels and attractions and operates sites in the U.S. (http://www.tripadvisor.com/) and in the U.K. (http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/). The TripAdvisor(R) media network provides travel suppliers with graphical advertising opportunities and a cost-per-click marketing platform. Collectively, TripAdvisor(R) sites have won hundreds of awards and accolades from press and industry, worldwide. TripAdvisor, LLC is an operating company of Expedia, Inc. .

TripAdvisor and TripAdvisor.com are either trademarks or registered trademarks of TripAdvisor LLC in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other logos or product and company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

SOURCE: TripAdvisor LLC