Viator, the destination activities website, expanded its attractions content and made it possible for members to share reviews and recommendations with their social networks.
The "things to do" transaction site enables users to transmit recommendations to their networks on Facebook and Twitter, but stopped short of deeper social network integration for now.
President and CEO Barrie Seidenberg says deeper Facebook integration is "very much part of our future roadmap. We believe Viator is all about travel inspiration and sharing information. That said, as a transaction-based travel site, it's important that we fully understand how our community wants us to integrate with social websites, including Facebook."
Over the next few months, Seidenberg says, Viator hopes to identify how users would prefer to integrate Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and other social platforms.
To pull off the site improvements, Viator wrote basic content covering 3,000 top global attractions to provide an overview, points of interest nearby and a mapped location. It also that linked content to existing product reviews.
It's interesting that Viator chose to create the content itself -- a substantial undertaking -- without aggregating it from the usual suspects.
Viator has for some time enabled members who have purchased a tour on the site to write a review or upload a photo, but it has added the ability for them to submit "traveler recommendations" and to share them with their Facebook and Twitter networks.
The company also added user profiles to the site so other users can click on a public profile and view all of that member's recommendations and photos in a single location.
Thus, if users click on Rio de Janeiro Soccer Match and Stadium Tour, they can read Viator-written highlights, schedule details and tour and pricing options, and also check out user reviews and photos.
A booking widget sits alongside the basic information.
There are 15 user reviews currently available for the stadium tour and you can click on the author's profile to get a sense of who they are.
Two user-taken photos of a match were also readily available for viewing.
"The tour-related reviews and photos, which we have had on the site for the past few years, require that you actually purchased and experienced that tour," Seidenberg says. "That is not changing. It is a critical quality-control feature for us. Unlike other travel review sites, our tour-related reviews and photos come from confirmed travelers with first-hand experience."
"By opening up more of a dialogue on the Viator site, we are giving travelers access to more information they can use to plan their trips, which also creates a more active community," Seidenberg adds.
And, Viator hopes a more engaged community will lead to plenty of more customers using that booking widget.