Trip Advisor acquires Holiday Watchdog

By Darren Cronian on Tuesday, February 5th, 2008

Travolution reported today that Holiday Watchdog has been acquired by Trip Advisor. From a consumer perspective I don’t like the idea that two of the largest travel brands in TUI and Expedia now own a growing portfolio of holiday review sites.

Personally, I think this type of travel site should be independent, and it is this, that stood Holiday Watchdog out from the crowd. I’m pleased for Chris and his team though because I know how hard they have worked on Holiday Watchdog.

Will we see a growing number of review sites being bought out by the big brands, I hope not.

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22 responses to “Trip Advisor acquires Holiday Watchdog”

Claude | 5 February, 2008 at 4:41 pm

Maybe good for Travel Rants if consumers still want independent and originals advises

Darren Cronian | 5 February, 2008 at 5:43 pm

Claude, I think this opens up the arena for someone independent to step up and take the big boys on. It’ll be a challenge. Hmmm. I just wish I had the coding and development knowledge, because I would be up for it.

Mike | 5 February, 2008 at 6:22 pm

I’ve heard that they paid in the region of £10m for it. Nice little earner for the owners!

Darren Cronian | 5 February, 2008 at 6:35 pm

What source does that come from Mike?

It’s all speculation, but whatever the amount, it shows that with hard work comes money, so good on them.

foxnomad | 5 February, 2008 at 6:52 pm

It’s unfortunate. The airline and related industry are really making a shift to obtaining more revenue through other means besides raising fares.

Along with luggage restrictions, etc. (recently announced by UAL for example) - travelers can expect to pay more.

Influencing reviews is another part of the indirect fare-hike campaign. It will certainly continue as fuel prices don’t seem likely to drop significantly any time soon.

Jeff | 6 February, 2008 at 12:55 pm

Its not great to have these brands owning review sites or even being connected. It sounds like a bit of a monopoly.

Darren Cronian | 6 February, 2008 at 1:37 pm

I agree Jeff.

Whilst I think its great to have competition because it keeps you on your toes, I don’t like the idea of monopolies.

Becky | 6 February, 2008 at 6:21 pm

I did not know that Trip advisor was owned by Expedia. Who will we go to now for travel reviews.

I think once more of us catch on we will be looking for new sites we can trust.

James | 6 February, 2008 at 6:28 pm

I own a hotel which is generating Expedia a nice tidy amount of revenue, Joe Smith comes along and leaves a bad comment, a genuine one. This comment could put some people off booking the hotel, are they really going to leave it on if it means they loose revenue?

Since I have heard that Trip Advisor is owned by Expedia I have lost a lot of trust.

Darren Cronian | 6 February, 2008 at 8:25 pm

James, I am still confident that Trip Advisor are being as independent as they can be on the reviews submitted.

Charles | 7 February, 2008 at 6:14 am

I am afraid wherever you see a site with a large number of consumers, user generated content, good search engine rankings, the large travel agencies and companies will be sniffing around.

This will not be the last buyout in 2008, and I suspect WAYN will be the next.

Lee Harrison (owner Select World Travel) | 7 February, 2008 at 9:41 am

We’re still here, Independent and some great reviews on our site. Next Project for you Darren Worldchoice and TTA tie Up?

Karen Bryan | 7 February, 2008 at 10:44 am

Darren, you could always team up with someone who has the coding and development knowledge? I’ve been feeling a bit uneasy about guest reviews of hotels since I stayed at a hotel in Norfolk for our wedding anniversary last year which was rated well in Active hotels but was really pretty awful. Yet Active Hotels only allow guests who booked through them and stay at the hotel to make reviews so the reviews should be unbiased.

Claude | 7 February, 2008 at 11:15 am

Darren,

Maybe you can use Twiki to start something !

TWiki, a flexible, powerful, and easy to use enterprise wiki, enterprise collaboration platform and knowledge management system

http://twiki.org/

compare wiki solutions
http://www.wikimatrix.org/compare/TWiki+Confluence+Socialtext

CSS Stylesheets can give a great look & feel to the wiki

best regards from France

Claude

Darren Cronian | 7 February, 2008 at 11:31 am

Thanks Claude, I’ll look into that.

Karen, I’ve acquired a lot of contacts whilst writing this blog so I have emailed a few them with coding and development knowledge. I’m in early discussions with one person. With regard to reviews, I’m not sure I trust hotel reviews on hotel booking sites, I trust Trip Advisor more for some reason.

It would be very easy for a hotel booking site to fabricate good reviews to get the under performing hotel bookings, not that I am suggesting active hotels are doing that.