TripAdvisor Is Launching A New Website And Mobile App Featuring "The World's First Travel Feed"
Photo: TripAdvisor
TripAdvisor recently announced it is launching a new website and mobile app next year.
The website and mobile app, which are currently in beta, will be personalized and feature several social elements that are reminiscent of Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare, and Yelp.
“TripAdvisor is poised to disrupt the travel industry once again as we create a more personalized and connected community,” said Stephen Kaufer, CEO & co-founder of TripAdvisor in a statement. “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 personalized, inspirational and useful TripAdvisor.”
Powered by what the company is calling “the world’s first travel feed,” TripAdvisor members will be able to connect with friends and family as well as brands, social media influencers, and publishers and share inspirational content including photos, videos, articles, recommendations, and reviews.
Photo: TripAdvisor
Members will also be able to create "Trips," which are travel guides, itineraries or wish lists of things that they would like to do while traveling. “Trips” can be kept private for personal use or made public to share with the rest of the TripAdvisor community.
TripAdvisor is already partners with Smarter Travel, Cruise Critic and TheFork.com, but will now be joined by the likes of National Geographic, Condé Nast Traveler, Travel Channel, Business Insider & Insider Guides, PopSugar, Great Big Story, Pandora Music, GoPro, Goop, Nashville Music City, and The Knot, and many others.
On the surface, I think it’s great that TripAdvisor is taking more of a social media approach to its website and app. After all, travel and social media go hand in hand today. No matter what social media platform you’re on, chances are that you probably have come across travel photos from people that you follow or are friends with. As a result, the move into the social space makes a lot of sense for TripAdvisor but it probably won’t come without challenge. TripAdvisor likely will have some difficulty in getting people on board. With platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest being hotbeds for travel content, most people aren’t going to take the time or effort to post content on TripAdvisor especially when there are no real benefits in doing so.
One easy to way to get people to post content to the website or app is by integrating it with the social media platforms themselves and giving them the option to re-share content from Instagram or Facebook directly to TripAdvisor. On the other hand, it likely could get people to share content by offering some type of incentive. For an example, if a member shared a photo, video, recommendation or anything else along those lines, they could be rewarded with points or discounts that could go towards a future trip or be used a restaurant.
In other travel news, Google’s in-house incubator Area 120 recently launched a new travel guide website in Touring Bird that it wants to be a one-stop-shop for travelers.
SOURCE: TripAdvisor Media
