TripAdvisor data for hotels

TripAdvisor India is trying to woo hospitality companies under its venture, TripAdvisor for Business. The travel site, which operates mainly as an advisor to those who want to plan a trip, is focusing on building Trip Advisor for Business, a dedicated division that provides the tourism industry access to TripAdvisor’s user base.

Around 58 per cent of the Indian accommodation listed on the travel site had registered on the TripAdvisor Management Centre in 2012, an increase of 20 per cent over last year.

“We are seeing awareness and adoption of the resources. Some properties have jumped right in and they are using our data and responses as the key metric to engage with the audience,” said Brian Payea, head of industry relation, TripAdvisor for Business.

Last year, the company conducted a “Master Class” programme attended by around 650 hoteliers, to help them make the most of the site’s data and understand the travellers better. “With Trip Advisor’s scale it is something you cannot ignore. We want to make our services as accessible as possible. For instance, we help hotels get reviews from their previous guests,” Payea said.

Currently, there are 22,394 Indian accommodations listed on TripAdvisor. On whether this will have an impact on the integrity of the reviews posted on their site, Payea said if a hotel sees a review they think is fraudulent, they can dispute it and explain to us why It should be removed. “However, commercial relationship has no impact on this,” he added.

In India, TripAdvisor wants to go all out to tap into the hotels which do not have access to the information the company is offering. “We want to prioritise according to the resources they have by understanding how they get information and how we can work with those groups,” Payea added.

According to a PhoCusWright report commissioned by TripAdvisor, around 53 per cent of respondents would not book a hotel that does not have any reviews on the site. “Hotels are realizing the impact of this enormous audience and the ability to put new customers in the property. People who use it for business also use it for leisure. There are options from budget to smaller non-branded hotel who have a level playing field here with the bigger brands,” Payea said.

For the third quarter ended September 2012, TripAdvisor Inc’s revenue from subscription increased by 53 per cent year on year at $21 million, representing 10 per cent of the total revenue for the quarter.