TripAdvisor has launched a new mashup combining hotel popularity, price and availability with a dynamic mapping tool. “The mashup of maps with TripAdvisor real traveler reviews, pricing and availability dramatically simplifies the travel planning process,” said Christine Petersen, senior vice president of marketing for TripAdvisor.

“TripAdvisor and our 20 million passionate travelers changed the way people choose their hotel, and now the process is even easier, combining the power of customer opinions with the key ingredients: location, location, location.”

Travelers planning for family visits over the holidays can start at the TripAdvisor “hotels” page for their relative’s hometown. From there, they click on the new maps links to find a property that’s just close enough (or far enough) from dear old Uncle Bob. Before deciding on a hotel, users sort the “gems” from the “germs” by sifting through TripAdvisor’s world-renowned real traveler reviews right from the map.

Travelers will find links to the new maps throughout tripadvisor.com—on each of:

  * hotel overview pages for 32,000 featured U.S. cities and towns
  * 17,000+ pages covering U.S. attractions
  * 135,000+ pages covering U.S. restaurant
 
Vacationers looking for an ideal spot between the theme park and the beach can go to the TripAdvisor pages covering Disney World or Universal Studios, and then click on the convenient maps link to see the most popular hotels that are close to the attractions they love. The vacationers can then filter their results by room price and availability right from the map.

“I was frustrated trying to find the perfect hotel in Naples, Florida, for this year’s multi-city Christmas trip. When I happened on TripAdvisor Maps, I was skeptical that I would find it useful, until I realized I’d nearly booked and overpaid for a hotel that was a whole mile from the beach,” said Ann Dienhart, avid vacationer and TripAdvisor user. “My family will be thrilled that I’ve found a hidden gem of a hotel instead.”

At launch, TripAdvisor Maps covers U.S. hotels, and will add restaurants, attractions and international destinations in the coming months.

For example, travelers looking for hotels in New York City can start with a map of the 20 most popular hotels in Manhattan at http://www.tripadvisor.com/LocalMaps-g60763 .

TripAdvisor pioneered user-generated content for travel, and continues to innovate with new Web 2.0 tools. Wiki functionality was added to TripAdvisor with the launch of TripAdvisor Inside(TM) earlier this year, creating a user-generated source for the freshest information about everything from weather and when to go, to history, architecture, transportation, currency and more about each of TripAdvisor’s 24,000 destination. GoLists(TM), also launched this year, provided another opportunity for travelers to share their wisdom in a capsulized list format for fast tips on a destination.

*Mashup (web application hybrid), a website or web application that combines content from more than one source
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