LONDON, U.K. – February 11, 2009 – TripAdvisor^®, the world’s largest travel community, today announced its new and improved restaurant product featuring reviews, maps, filters and easy links to reservations. With a survey of more than 700 TripAdvisor travellers revealing that 45% of Britons have eaten out an average of three times over the past month, TripAdvisor’s new restaurant tools offer travellers the means to easily find, book and locate outstanding dining options.

This enhanced restaurant functionality is part of a series of new features being rolled out on tripadvisor.co.uk in the coming weeks to help people find the best product at the best price. 

“Whether your holiday is thousands of miles away or just around the corner, TripAdvisor has everything you need to find a great meal,” said Christine Petersen, chief marketing officer of TripAdvisor. “In 2009, we’re committed to offering our customers, both travellers and advertising clients, the best ways to find value. Stay tuned for more.”

Since the beginning of the year, more than five million travellers have already accessed restaurant information on TripAdvisor. 

Restaurant Reviews on TripAdvisor

Featuring more than two million reviews and ratings on nearly 500,000 restaurants, TripAdvisor is providing travellers with yet another tool to help them plan the perfect trip. Trying to find a restaurant that serves a juicy burger, is child-friendly and won’t cost an arm and a leg?  TripAdvisor’s new restaurant filters allow travellers to do that and see what thousands of their best friends are recommending. These filters allow travellers to sort by:

·         Price – Search restaurants by four different price levels ranging from £7 and under per person to £27 and above

·         Cuisine – From Chinese to vegetarian, and everything in between, sort by type of cuisine

·         Recommended for – For specific interests, such as looking for a great breakfast or an eatery with outdoor seating, take advantage of the “recommended for” filter

According to TripAdvisor’s survey, Italian is the nation’s top choice when dining out, favoured by 25% of Britons. A further 19% of diners say their favorite cuisine is Indian, 14% love traditional British fare and 10% choose Chinese.

Making Reservations with Ease

With a few simple clicks, travellers can easily make a reservation in the U.K. from next month, by directly linking to www.toptable.co.uk, a leading online reservation site for diners, or to OpenTable.com in the U.S., a leading provider of free, real-time online restaurant reservations. More than 10,000 restaurants in the U.S. and Europe will be bookable on TripAdvisor this month.

Get the Map, then Go

To make finding the location of an upcoming gastronomic adventure easy, TripAdvisor offers dynamic maps showing where restaurants are located and links to get directions.

iPhone Restaurant Application

To make locating the perfect restaurant easy while on the go, iPhone users can download TripAdvisor’s Local Picks™ restaurant finder. Taking advantage of the iPhone’s location-based capabilities, the Local Picks application helps travellers find the best restaurants, as rated by locals, based on their current location. For budget travellers, the application allows restaurants to be sorted by price. 

Local Picks is available free at www.itunes.com/appstore/. 

Facebook App Led to Rapid Restaurant Growth

Seeking to capture and provide more robust and relevant restaurant information, TripAdvisor tapped into the knowledge and wisdom of millions of people that love to share and exchange information on Facebook by launching its Local Picks restaurant reviews and ratings application on Facebook in the autumn of 2007. Launching this viral application that easily enables the sharing of culinary opinions among friends, TripAdvisor grew its restaurant offering from less than 100,000 establishments to nearly 500,000 in four months.  These insights, now also available on tripadvisor.com, are helping millions of travellers plan and have the perfect trip. 

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