TripAdvisor expands activities channel through GetYourGuide

Kevin May is the editor and co-founder of Tnooz, which focuses on technology, digital marketing and web strategy in the travel sector. On this website, he published the article “TripAdvisor expands activities channel through GetYourGuide” on March 10^th 2011.

TripAdvisor.com is the world's largest travel site that assists customers in gathering travel information, posting reviews and opinions of travel related content and engaging in interactive travel forums. GetYourGuide is a booking website for tours & activities. From sightseeing by bus to shark diving, they give the full spectrum of things to do for the next vacation or weekend adventure.

These two companies decided to partner up to be a booking service for products by signing a 2-year contract. Together, visitors will be able to see a “Things to do” section on the Tripadvisor page and book any activities through a Book Now button. By clicking the button, the user gets redirected to the GetYourGuide booking page.

This deal exemplifies how some of the large players in the wider online travel sector are using the occasion to strengthen their available product lines by cross-marketing themselves through other channels.

Most significantly, given that various such services would be searched for and purchased in-resort, similar functionality will be included on the TripAdvisor mobile apps.

The deal is significant for a new company such as GetYourGuide. Local tour and activity providers might be more eager than before to link with a booking system such as GetYourGuide when they see competing providers on TripAdvisor with a Book Now button next to their service.

Including the direct booking service is a “smart step” by TripAdvisor as GetYourGuide CEO Johannes Reck says. Giving travelers a variety of options when looking for a destination or trip is an important point given that TripAdvisor is still most likely best known for hotel reviews.

Due to the increasing importance of web-marketing, more and more tour and activity providers are willing to tap into online distribution services, both for transactions and marketing purposes.

The feature has not been launched yet but should be available on the US, UK, Germany and Ireland TripAdvisor version in the next few weeks.

It will be interesting to see what influence this partnership has and how many similar deals follow that stretegic decision.