Instant Bookings online
TripAdvisor's Instant Bookings helps travellers and trade partners to not only search for accommodation, attractions and restaurants but also book them online.
According to Nikhil Ganju, Country Manager-India, TripAdvisor, the travel trade has been a big focus for TripAdvisor as per their business model even though the consumers form a large segment of the clients but the fact that the trade also engages with the product is what makes it so popular. The trade and business partners of TripAdvisor consist of three segments — hotels (which form the largest and most important partners); attractions of all kinds listed on TripAdvisor and restaurants.
Benefits
Ganju says, “Given the fact that TripAdvisor is world’s largest travel website and attracts more than 320 million visitors on a monthly basis, it becomes an important and lucrative platform for the hotels to be listed.” He adds that hotels across the world have also recognised the power of the platform, have been deeply engaged for online reputation on the portal, have used the customer reviews to add and improve services and value-add offers and also made use of the free marketing tools just by registering on the platform.
What’s New
“Earlier this year we launched Instant Bookings which is a significantly new functionality and feature on the website and application where travellers can now not only search for their travel needs but also book it instantly after looking at reviews and comparing prices which have been sourced from more than 200 sites globally,” says Ganju. He adds that this year the primary goal of the company is to educate the vast clientele about the enhancements and availability of instant bookings.
Earlier this year we launched Instant Bookings which is functionality and feature on the website
Trends
For TripAdvisor, FIT and leisure segments are big growth drivers whereas luxury is a fairly small segment. Amongst the hotels, as price is a sensitive and deciding factor for many travellers, the lower and mid-priced segment hotels are enjoying maximum traction. “Our endeavour is to provide the best price in the market. An increasing shift to mobile bookings has been seen. Earlier in destinations, bookings were popular for restaurants and attractions but now the hotel bookings traffic is also shifting to in destination mobile bookings,” add Ganju.