The New TripAdvisor Goes Social, Gets Personal

TripAdvisor Introduces Social-Assisted Travel, Enabling Members to Get Relevant Recommendations and Inspiration to Be the One Travel Site to Plan “Your” Perfect Trip

Travellers Can Now Follow Friends and Travel Experts They Trust, including Publishers, Brands and Social Media Influencers

Over 500 Launch Partners in Beta - National Geographic, the Travel Channel, Business Insider, GoPro, PopSugar, Daniel Food Diary, Have Halal Will Travel, Denise Keller and Melissa C Koh

Members Will Be Able to Discover and Share Helpful Content via a Personalised, Dynamic Travel Feed, Including Videos, Articles, Travel Guides, Reviews and More

TripAdvisor (NASDAQ: TRIP) today unveiled a new site and mobile experience launching later this year. Currently in beta, the world’s largest travel site* is evolving to become the most personalised and connected travel community, inspiring and empowering individuals with social assistive tools to plan and book better with relevant advice and information from people and experts they trust. Click here to watch the presentation.

The new TripAdvisor expands its community beyond travellers to also include brands, social media influencers, publishers and friends. Travellers can follow and connect with individuals or content creators who share information that is relevant to their interests.

Complementing our more than 661 million reviews and opinions, TripAdvisor members will be able to create and view inspirational and helpful new forms of content including photos, videos and articles. Members will also have the ability to create “Trips,” which can be in-depth travel guides, itineraries or simple wish lists of things to do while traveling. Trips can be made private and saved for personal use or shared with the community to inspire and help others.

Powered by the world’s first “travel feed,” TripAdvisor members will be able to discover more relevant information faster when planning travel. Assisted throughout the entire travel planning process, members can draw advice and inspiration from their friends, family and trusted experts.

When a member logs onto the TripAdvisor app or site, their homepage transforms into a personalised feed of information. When searching a particular destination, the feed automatically narrows the scope of the information displayed to that particular geographic location. For example, members planning a trip to Paris may see a food critic’s article on the best restaurant in the city, an influencer’s travel guide of “must-do’s,” and a friend’s review of a new hotel near the Eiffel Tower.

Click here to learn more.

“TripAdvisor is poised to disrupt the travel industry once again as we create a more personalised and connected community,” said Stephen Kaufer, CEO & co-founder of TripAdvisor. “The new TripAdvisor is the one travel site that brings together social-assistive tools, amazing content and our existing booking capabilities to merge the joy of planning and discovery together into a single experience. We are assisting our members at each step of their journey as we become a more personalised, inspirational and useful TripAdvisor.”

A New, Valuable Audience for Brands and Publishers

While in beta, more than 500 social media influencers, well-known consumer brands, publishers and travel partners have joined the new TripAdvisor — with more being added every day. In addition to the many content creators joining the platform, TripAdvisor’s team of destination experts and TripAdvisor Media Group brands, including Smarter Travel, Cruise Critic and TheFork.com, will also contribute to the site experience through unique profiles.

These partners have already started to create hundreds of pieces of inspiring and helpful travel content, grow their followers, and provide valuable feedback to improve the experience.

Members will be able to follow favourite brands and online publishers like National Geographic, Condé Nast Traveller, Travel Channel, Business Insider & Insider Guides, PopSugar, GoPro and local publishers like Have Halal Will Travel. Members will also be able to follow leading social media influencers like celebrities Denise Keller, Rosalyn Lee and Huda Ali, as well as travel content creators Girl Eat World, Daniel Food Diary, Melissa C Koh, Mongchin Yeoh, Dotz Soh and Christabel Chua.

“National Geographic wants to reach our customers wherever it is they are consuming content. We want to be available on all platforms allowing people to engage with our brand and content wherever and whenever they choose,” said Chris Thorman, Vice President Community Products & Growth, National Geographic. “We’re excited to be among the first publishers to join the new TripAdvisor, further expanding our travel footprint. As a global media company, we’re always seeking new opportunities to share our awe-inspiring articles, photos and video content, and a partnership with TripAdvisor allows us to do just that.”

TripAdvisor’s Impact on Travel and Tourism

TripAdvisor has unveiled its new site and mobile experience at a time when the company’s impact on the travel and tourism industry is massive and growing. Two recent studies show a growing reliance on TripAdvisor during the travel planning, booking (pre-trip and in-destination) and post-trip experience. According to a 2017 Oxford Economics Study, the TripAdvisor platform has influenced $546 billion USD (10.3%) of global tourism spend annually in the travel and hospitality industry as consumers sought our review content as a part of their decision-making process. A 2018 study from comScore found that 60% of people booking travel online went to TripAdvisor during the travel planning and booking process, and a full 74% of travellers used TripAdvisor when booking on hotel websites.

The new TripAdvisor site and mobile experience is set to come out of beta and launch globally to the public later this year across all markets and languages where the company operates.