TripAdvisor launches its flight metasearch system outside of the US and UK for the first time today, with Ireland, Canada, France, Italy, Germany and Spain joining in.
The launch of the flight meta in the six new countries comes almost 18 months since TripAdvisor rolled out the service in the UK in October 2009 following a successful pilot in the US earlier that year.
TripAdvisor has turned its attention back to the service in recent months after letting the US and UK versions establish themselves throughout 2010 (presumably also watching the progress of the Google-ITA deal as well), adding airline user ratings in January 2011.
In October last year, Asia-Pacific managing director Marc Charron would not comment specifically on whether he thought flight search was a success or not, saying "it’s a great product" and fills a requirement to provide another travel service to users.
Much as changed in the following seven months, with "no plans to launch it elsewhere" shifting to roll-out in six new markets today.