TripAdvisor buying stuff - eight months ago
Lots of coverage elsewhere today about TripAdvisor buying a few sites - including BookingBuddy.com, SmarterTravel.com, SeatGuru.com, TravelPod.com and Travel-Library.com.
Travolution readers will already know the deal to buy Travel-Library.com was actually completed in September last year - but apparently TripAdvisor wanted to wait a few months (well, eight) before releasing details to the media.
Sorry guys...
We found out about it in November after the boss of a leading travel site told us they had seen the sale documents and had been interested in a deal for a short time.
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
Technorati tags: tripadvisor travel portal acquisition
8 comments:
Now I know why I had this strong feeling of having read about his quite some time ago......!
PR management huh.
Trip Advisor is a valuable resource, but its success has led to its being somewhat less valuable. Hotels have been known to "push" their own ratings ... and sometimes post negatively about their competitors.
As they get bigger through acquiring more sites, I'm afraid their value as a source of objective advice diminishes.
Keep a close eye on what goes on with Travel library, should be interesting to see if they remove some features of the site, i.e. vacation rentals, and concentrate on the reviews.
Darren: i imagine this would be of particular interest to you, as you are also involved in Holiday-Rentals-UK.com. ;-)
David: The debate and anecdotal evidence about hoteliers posting their own reviews on TA continues.
A concern we have raised with Marc Charron, their European MD, a number of times is about volume and relevance.
Some argue that now, simply because of the sheer weight of traffic and number of reviews on the site, users are finding it difficult to find reviews which will actually be suitable for them.
i.e. as a chap in his mid-30s with a young family, I might want to only read reviews about a hotel that have been written by people with the same demographic.
in other words: there needs to be some kind of intelligent filtering system added.
I recently read this can anyone confirm the price?
For TripAdvisor, a unit of Expedia Inc., the purchase of Independent Traveler is its fifth acquisition of a travel media company in the last nine months. Previous acquisitions included Travel Library (September 2006); TravelPod (December 2006); Smarter Travel Media (February 2007); and SeatGuru (March 2007).
Expedia Inc. didn't disclose the purchase prices of any of the acquisitions, but did note recently that it bought one travel-information firm in the first quarter of this year for $41.1 million, and a 50% ownership interest in another on March 30 for $26 million in cash.
Brian Payea, a TripAdvisor spokesman, said the purchase of Cruise Critic will enable TripAdvisor to expand its content and advertising in the cruise segment.
Dan: We'll check it out.
Post a Comment