After acquiring Viator for $200 million earlier this year, TripAdvisor has begun to integrate Viator into its core platform.
The first integration is a direct comparison widget for specific attractions that allows Tripadvisor users to see tours and activites around one attraction. After viewing the tour options, users can click through to Viator to complete the purchase.
The idea here is to finally deliver conversion on the Attraction pages, where users are already engaging and exploring user reviews of attractions. The ability to book activities next to reviews is one of the biggest advantages of the Viator integration, as TripAdvisor users can now find bookable in-destination activities during the research phase.
Rather than try to integrate the complexity surrounding tour bookings - such as tour-specific inputs such as passenger weight for a helicopter tour - the user will be sent off to Viator to complete the booking.
In a chat with Tnooz, TripAdvisor's SVP of Global Product Adam Medros
When we bought Viator, we had a similar playbook to La Fourchette. We told them to go keep running the business, and growing it. We have a long-term track record of letting subsidiaries thrive and grow. But we bought them because there was a great synergy between what we have on the demand side, and the supply they bring.Now, we're pulling in up to three tours per page, so if you go to the Eiffel tour there will be up to three tours that are relevant right on the page with pricing and descriptions. We think that will increase conversion rate, and give users an idea of what's possible. We think it's a great balance between commerce and content that the user will find helpful.
As far as the roadmap, personalization is most definitely on the horizon. This means that users may see offerings tweaked according to personal histories over time, the
Right now, it's just the three spots offered by Viator that make the most sense for that attraction. It's realistic to look at us building out personalization like "just for you" on hotels. If you're traveling with kids and we know that from research and bookings, we can tweak the tours.Anything that maximizes conversion and user happiness in terms of that's the right thing for me, that's what we're going to offer up. It's a big part of the road map in 2015 and what we're going to deliver on.
NB: Go image courtesy Shutterstock.