TripAdvisor Extends Business Listings For Indian Hoteliers; Aims To Enable More Direct Bookings

Online travel reviews and recommendation site TripAdvisor, has launched 'TripAdvisor Business Listings' for Indian property owners of both hotels and restaurants.

This is aimed at providing better exposure to hoteliers across all TripAdvisor sites and encourage more direct bookings. The launch follows a free trial of Business Listings on the portal.

Subscription to the new service will allow property owners to add their direct contact information—such as a website link, email address and phone number—to their property pages on TripAdvisor. There will be annual and monthly subscriptions capped at a fixed amount and are tiered according to the number of rooms and location of the properties, starting from $40 a month (~Rs 2,000).

Julio Bruno, global vice president (sales), TripAdvisor said, "More than 90 per cent of the hoteliers we've contacted since April 2011 have already participated in our initiative to get accommodation businesses in India online. And over 800,000 leads (clicks and email contact) have been generated for Indian hoteliers from domestic traffic alone via our free trial of the product over the past 10 months."

Nikhil Ganju, country manager, TripAdvisor India, claimed visits to India hotel pages on TripAdvisor have more than doubled in the last year. "With page views for India destinations and accommodation businesses on the rise across all TripAdvisor domains, the time is right for Indian hoteliers to invest in the new improved Business Listing product in order to reach more potential guests around the world," he added.

TripAdvisor is also launching a series of free Master Class events to help Indian hotel businesses develop their online presence through TripAdvisor's free marketing resources and tools. It will cover a range of online marketing best practices with live site demonstrations from TripAdvisor staff and other industry experts.