Holy Crap, is this for real?
Exclusive: TripAdvisor to add direct hotel contact information, which can speed your research
Visit the website>>> TripAdvisor
Exclusive: TripAdvisor to add direct hotel contact information, which can speed your research
submitted by: Boomer
Comment wisely on this resource if you must.
(Companies can be touchy about their reputations, don't go getting yourself sued)
Yes, but they are going to charge a hefty fee, you'll notice the fees in the article
"The popular hotel-review website will soon be able to add - for a fee - a hotel's direct website address, telephone number and email address to hotel listings, "
Wonder what the fee will be? I think many would pay it. Here is it, never mind...
TripAdvisor will charge hoteliers yearly subscription fees ranging from $600 for the smallest of properties
I would definitely try it for $300.00. Will be interesting to know for sure what I've thought all along...
Just received the introductory email - up to 10 rooms intro price of $300 (til end of Jan. '10) - reg. rate $600.
Also just got this email in response to my newly uploaded photos:
"Thanks for sending along your listing changes and helping keep TripAdvisor the world’s most accurate and up-to-date travel website. I have amended your listing and you should notice the updated information on our live site within the next day or two.
In case you haven’t noticed yet, TripAdvisor now offers an “Owner’s Page” available to you at the bottom of your listing page. From there you can manage your listing and access functionality that allows you to easily monitor and garner reviews from your own personal website.
Also, keep in mind that we are glad to add news articles or guidebooks to your listing for no charge. If you look at some of the top accommodations in your area, you will note that they have pages from guidebooks, newspapers, or other information sources attached to their listing. If your property is ever mentioned in an unbiased article published on the internet, please feel free to forward the link to us via the form found here:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/AddUrl
Please note that we cannot post information links to the following:
travel reservations websites
hotel websites
paid-access web pages
web pages with adult content
web pages with no unique web address
web pages with no permanent content (such as the front page of an online news source)
articles not currently published online
articles not in English
We hope that you have a great experience using all that TripAdvisor has to offer you and your business.
Sincerely,
The TripAdvisor Support Team"
Some of us might not have realized that more non-paid online content about your Inn there is, the higher TA ranks you in your city. I realized that about the #1 B&B in our town way back when he had half the reviews I had, with no better score, but was positioned above me.
LB I got word for word the same email. Note in the article submission it can't be an article, like a news release you yourself put together or submitted. BUMMER!
I did change my main photo and it is still the same and the owner's pix I submitted are behind guest pix, which is a bummer and I submitted higher rez than they did and of things I want people to see, vs a light in a room or something. Now that they are there I will go and see if I can adjust their display order or something. They did that in less than 24 hours, so I am impressed.
it will be interesting to see if they allow photo arrangements. I am betting it won't allow you to do that
But...can you link to your blog???
The only one visible form the listing would be the thumbnail (you designate which one for the thumbnail) but the paid link is not until JAN so I think we have to wait til then to add it. If anyone gets the go ahead please post it for the rest of us to get on board.
If they were smart they would discount our annual for providing a reciprical link, but they prob already require that anyway.
"
Some of us might not have realized that more non-paid online content about your Inn there is, the higher TA ranks you in your city. I realized that about the #1 B&B in our town way back when he had half the reviews I had, with no better score, but was positioned above me.
How do you get online content about your B&B? What kind of content are they referring to here?
--Kesous
"
Some of us might not have realized that more non-paid online content about your Inn there is, the higher TA ranks you in your city. I realized that about the #1 B&B in our town way back when he had half the reviews I had, with no better score, but was positioned above me.
How do you get online content about your B&B? What kind of content are they referring to here?
--Kesous
On Trip Advisor you are able as the owner/manager of your Inn add articles written about your place to your listing - as long as they are not press releases you have created yourself. So say Southern Living has an article that mentions your town and your B&B you can add that to your listing. TA loves that sort of thing.
They don't actually show up on your listing, but on the city page. And they don't all show up. There is a LOT of irrelevant crap on my city page that is so old, a lot of the places are closed. Some of the articles aren't even about my area. I keep sending links to online articles and I keep reading stories from 6-10 years ago.
What TA REALLY likes is to have 'Frommers' or 'Fodors' show up as the author of the article.
They don't actually show up on your listing, but on the city page. And they don't all show up. There is a LOT of irrelevant crap on my city page that is so old, a lot of the places are closed. Some of the articles aren't even about my area. I keep sending links to online articles and I keep reading stories from 6-10 years ago.
What TA REALLY likes is to have 'Frommers' or 'Fodors' show up as the author of the article.
But then again, I have a Frommers Article about me and they have not accepted it or linked to it last time I looked. Who knows!!!
RIki
"
Some of us might not have realized that more non-paid online content about your Inn there is, the higher TA ranks you in your city. I realized that about the #1 B&B in our town way back when he had half the reviews I had, with no better score, but was positioned above me.
How do you get online content about your B&B? What kind of content are they referring to here?
--Kesous
See http://www.tripadvisor.com/help/how_can_i_add_a_link_to_a_story_about_my_hotel_on_my_listing_page
Hello, I followed your discussion with interest and I wanted to tell you that we are preparing to launch a website that will surely offer the features you won't find in a site like TripAdvisor. We'll put it online in few weeks, but for now we have a blog and a page that explains the idea behind the concept of TripSourcing. We would love to hear your comments and feedback on the concept forward first. Go to the following address for more information: www.tripsourcing.com You can also visit our new blog at: blog.tripsourcing.com. Thank you very much. Guillaume Gosselin
Guillaume you may want to add this on its own thread instead of burying it in here under Tripadvisor You may have it removed by the owner of the site. Put it under Directories - you will see that section when you create a new topic. Then you will have a fair shake.
I just paid the $300, so we'll see how it goes. I'm glad it's starting at the beginning of the year, will make an easy comparison to other "paid" directories. I'm predicting that it will be huge...at least for us.
I just paid the $300, so we'll see how it goes. I'm glad it's starting at the beginning of the year, will make an easy comparison to other "paid" directories. I'm predicting that it will be huge...at least for us.
I am adding it right now, please let us know what you find in your statz and I will do the same.
(for others - add by Jan 31st to get 50% off rate)
What came first, the chicken or the gorilla? I mean, ahem egg? Do guests find us while searching our area on TA or do they find us on google and THEN go to TA and research our reviews? I have yet to find this answer which is why I am paying for this link from TA for this year to test the waters.
This is from the article I posted under resources from Google:
Using Search Engines and Reviews
"Travelers conduct their travel research via the Internet more than any other source. Logically, these consumers are checking reviews before making reservations. According to the Google and OTX study, 41% make leisure travel plans and 50% make business travel plans according to the reviews they read. Taking it one step further, more consumers are now submitting their own reviews to share with others."
full article here
All,
We did sign up for the $300 Tripadvisor offering. The results have been disappointing to say the least. In retrospect, given the amount of links on the tripadvisor page, perhaps our expectations should have been lower.
We are a pretty big operation and we received 17 referrals from our Tripadvisor listing in a recent 30 day period. This is off-season for us, but even if you make seasonal adjustments, we will have trouble re-upping at the "discounted" $300 level, let alone the $600 level.
In this same period Bedandbreakfast.com referred 18 times that level of traffic. The other national B&B directories also referred many multiples of the TA traffic for a cost comparable to TA.
One other thing that I don't think came out in the previous discussion about the TA offering and we didn't pay attention is that the link they offer is only on your detail page. They don't even put your link on the B&B page!
TA may tweak their offering... we'll see. I think they will have lousy renewal rates.
P.S. Repetitive disclosure: we are a large BB.com advertiser so your experience will vary.
We only do the single listing on bandb.com, no additional purchasing of position and we found the same thing... as far as referring, TA is way behind even the weirdo free pages we end up on.
We bought the link because a good percentage of our guests stated they found us on TA. Obviously they were also able to make the leap and find the phone number and other info on their own. They didn't need the TA link.
However, in the same time frame, the same number of guests booked after getting to our website from TA as from bandb.com. So, I've made the money back on both listings. Now it's gravy time... Bandb.com has done 10x ROI in the past, so that's the benchmark.
So, jury is still out here on how good/bad a deal the TA link is.
