TripAdvisor TripConnect
Promoting the Hostel Movement
I have been looking at the new Trip Advisor "Trip Connect" feature offered to hostels to gain improved exposure on Trip Advisor and I am rather impressed. As a person seeking to identify innovative solutions for hostels to be more efficient then I have to admire Trip Advisor for what they have come up with. It's not that I think TripConnect is good for hostels and I am not 100% sure how it will evolve. But it is genius in how it facilitates a hostel to be able to pay per click so the hostel's profile on Trip Advisor is promoted. So instead of a hostel using a Google Adwords account to create links that go direct to the hostel's own website to improve the ranking of the hostel's website via pay per click. Now the hostel can use the TripConnect to pay TripAdvisor to improve the Tripadvisor ranking on Google. This is a "user pays" style of system rather than the common variant that the hostel agent retains 10% commission and decides itself how much it will promote your hostel.
The problem with the commission 10% variants is that it is becoming a 14% variant etc etc. All hostels on the commission variants get listed the "same" - in theory. But in reality there are many secret deals. Anyway, the TripAdvisor TripConnect enables the awake and switched on hostel owners and managers to pay more and gain an advantage over the lazy non participative hostels. TripConnect seems to be a middle ground between a commission agent listing and a hostel's own Adwords Account activity.
Here is a link to more information we have provided to our users about Trip Connect.
- Comments
11 years
Here is a little more information about TripConnect if anyone hasn’t looked into it yet:
From the TripConnect FAQ page:
Starting in Q4 2013, TripConnect will empower you to add a link to your TripAdvisor profile featuring your rates and availability — and sending travelers directly to your online reservations center. Your TripConnect link will appear alongside links from Online Travel Agents, giving you an incredible opportunity to generate incremental revenue and maximize direct bookings.
Best of all, TripConnect delivers all of this at a very competitive cost of acquisition. As an easy-to-manage Cost-Per-Click (CPC) solution, TripConnect puts you in total control of your budget and costs. In order to participate, just make sure you meet the following criteria:
- Have an active Business Listings subscription
- Work with a certified Internet Booking Engine (IBE)
- Be a registered and verified owner on TripAdvisor
So the idea is that first you have to pay TripAdvisor for a business listing (something that hostels have been hesitant to do in the past due to the high price tag and limited benefits). Then with this new program you can list your rates and availability on your property’s TA profile page, along with a direct link to your own website to make the booking. That link will be placed next to the booking links from other OTAs (like HW, for example). In exchange for posting your direct link, you will pay an amount that you determine for each time that someone clicks on your link, much like bidding for Google adwords.
The way I understood this program, it gives properties the chance to capture direct bookings from TripAdvisor rather than having those customers book through an OTA. I like that!
I looked through TA’s description of the program, but I don’t see where it says that they will promote your property compared to competitors or improve your ranking. Both of those would certainly make the offer more appealing in my opinion. If you can point me to where I can find that part of the deal, it would be great!
Here are the benefits that TripAdvisor presented:
What do I get for my spend on TripConnect?
- Your property will receive free impressions in Hotel Price Comparison search results every time a user lands on your TripAdvisor property profile.
- TripConnect links conversion-ready users directly from your TripAdvisor property profile to your property’s own website.
- These users will book their stay directly on your property’s own website, allowing you to avoid paying booking commissions to an intermediary.
- If your IBE has a TripConnect Premium Certification, you will receive reporting on the return on investment (ROI) of your CPC campaign.
One of the conditions is that you have to use a certified booking engine. Dean, I followed your link and saw that Dorm Online is certified. That’s great, because I didn’t see you on the Trip Connect partner page.
I also really appreciated the comment on your link explaining the fees and the return that would be needed. I hope you don’t mind me reposting it here.
A key point to TripConnect is that it requires a TripAdvisor Business Listing which costs about 125 euros a year per room you have in the hostel. Then of course you will need to pay for each click your page gets.
In the Funky Hostel example TripAdvisor requests 636 euros a year for a Business Listing. Therefore, TripAdvisor would have to deliver at least 6360 euros of bookings to be as low priced as all other agents that charge 10% commission. When considering the costs of clicks then we would need about 10,000 euros of bookings a year from TripAdvisor just to break even with 10% commission charging agents.
I think it most probable that TripAdvisor could deliver only about 1000 euros in extra bookings to the hostel in a year above what the hostel achieves already.
Since 2010 the hostel has only received 27 reviews and this is regardless that we send every guests a request for a review that includes a TripAdvisor link.
So you need to look at your situation to see if you can justify such an expense.
11 years
Yes if we had a list of Hype Cycle topics for the hostel industry then TripConnect could well be at the peak of that Hype list. TripAdvisor seems to communicate only using sales and marketing spin so it is not possible to get a base bench mark of clear information to be able to evaluate the full practicality of TripConnect. In the absence of full information it looks to me that TripAdvisor is trying to be the portal for hostels to use as a substitute for a Google Adwords campaign. TripAdvisor is trying to wriggle in between the hostel's own web presence and Google type search engines. I see Hostelworld doing the same thing with their using Google terminology and their pursuit of a better Quality Score.
It all comes back to the new theme for Google - "Curation". Google is placing massive emphasis on curation that is placing the power of search ranking improvement in to the hands of individual hostel owners. But as we know hostel owners do not take up such opportunities so TripAdvisor, Hostelworld etc are seeking to capture that space.
But other than my disdain at hostel's seeking to be more independent and profitable but then handing over the keys of their hostel to commission charging agents. I do admire the business nous of TripAdvisor. Rather than compete to get hostels converted to a TripAdvisor booking engine. They are saying come and play with us and you can use your own toys. Then in the future you could expect TripAdvisor to say - hey how do you like the new toys we have and how about using our toys. Meanwhile you have Hostelworld working on their own set of toys to offer to hostels in the near future.
The one common principal is this. If corporates use their money to capture the online market space then there will be a corresponding technology that enables people to circumvent them. Corporates are trying to apply their commercial orientated filters to the hostel industry. So if we look at how people have got around censorship then we see examples of how the hostel industry will go.
11 years
Sirvoy booking system for hostels is now a certified TripAdvisor TripConnect partner and IBE. The feature is included in our premium version.
11 years
TripAdvisor Connect gives small hotels the edge, makes it 'credible alternative' to OTAs
“The platform allows (smaller) hotels to place bids and compete against OTA bids for their own property – the question is: are smaller hotels able to compete with the big guys budgets to appear among the first 3x placements (= 90 % of clicks)? Some hotels might have the budgets, most probably not, or they have to shift their offline budgets to online. The big winner is TripAdvisor and some (smaller) wins for smaller/independent hotels.”
What industry observers say they find interesting is that Google (via Hotel Finder) as well as TripAdvisor are introducing features that empower hotel suppliers to sell directly more and more. At Asia Connect in Bangkok last month, players such as Site Minder and Sabre Hospitality Solutions report robust increases in direct bookings through their IBEs.
Said the executive, “They must have looked at the upside closely as currently their business is dependent on the large OTAs (ie Priceline $1.14 billion ad spend on Google represents 2.6% share of Google’s total ad revenues in 2012). However, the total hotel supplier segment seems to represent a larger opportunity in the long run vs the OTAs.
11 years
Hi, I recently got Tripconnect for my hostel, but I cant seem to the Internet Booking Engine (IBE) for Hostelworld......do you know how I should proceed? In order to showcase my property....thanks in advance.
11 years
I dont know how to do it if you are using the BE hostelworld ... I am using winkhsotel BE and works Great . If I look my profile in TripAdvisor ... Shows the prices in booking.com venere.com etc and my own website through winkshotel
If you want to see the soft running just try it in www.winkshotel.com.ar the webpage is in spanish but the software is in english and spanish .. Just press the buttom PROBAR
10 years
Has anyone been using TripConnect? I've been toying with signing up for a while but am unsure of whether it will have a massive effect on bookings.
I'd really appreciate it if someone who has been using it could give me some details on how effective it has been?
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