COI: date=October 2008

TripAdvisor.com is a free travel guide and research website that hosts reviews from users and other information designed to help plan a vacation. TripAdvisor is an example of consumer generated media. The website services are free to users who provide content, and the website makes its money from advertising, mostly from travel-related industries.

Description

TripAdvisor reviews cover more than 212,000 hotels and 74,000 attractions in over 30,000 destinations worldwide. With more than 15 million reviews and opinions and nearly 30 million unique visitors a month, TripAdvisor claims to be the largest travel community on the web.

History

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

TripAdvisor operates nine other travel-related websites, including Virtualtourist, Cruise Critic, Seatguru and TravelPod.

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

Website features

• Reviews: Hotel, restaurant and attraction rankings found on the site are based largely on user-generated reviews.
• Travel wiki: 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.
• 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.

External links

• TripAdvisor.com