Tripadvisor will get tripbod many more ‘friends’ and ‘ends’

Global community delivering local friends gets bought by Tripadvisor. Sally Broom talks to Valere Tjolle about the deal

The acquisition, and other moves, signals TripAdvisor’s evolution away from the core hotel and restaurant  reviews and into a much wider range of destination and trip-planning services.

Tripbod creates personal travel experiences by putting travelers in touch with enthusiastic locals. Boss Sally Broom, who started the company 6 years ago told Vision on Sustainable Tourism that she can now get on with expanding the company with fewer financial restrictions.

Morphed from ‘Your Safe Planet’, Tripbod  has taken only a nominal level of investment so far, said Broom – an "upper six figures" round from angel investors in March 2012 and a small injection from Rough Guides founder Martin Dunford who joined as an advisor in late-2010.

The idea is that local experts share their favourite places and things to do in their destinations with tourists before and during a trip.

Broom, who has been a leading light in the Responsible Tourism Networking movement, said:

"Anyone can see the fit with TripAdvisor is perfect, so we are naturally very excited about the next chapter. To have the opportunity to take the Tripbod ethos and share that with millions of travellers is exciting to say the least!"

"The acquisition by TripAdvisor is a huge opportunity for Tripbod – both as a company and a community. It’s always been the community and the focus on creating more sustainable tourism opportunities professionally that has differentiated Tripbod from the rest. Now we join the world’s biggest travel community whilst continuing to build on the foundations we’ve laid."

"As the Tripbod product has such high engagement and positive feedback rates, we know travellers trust us. We are therefore well placed to support those travellers who are open minded to travelling responsibly and sustainably. I am really impressed – along with many of the Tripbods – with the pioneering stance TripAdvisor is taking in bringing responsible tourism to the main stage. To be a part of pushing forward that agenda is really exciting for me, as it feels we will now be able to have the impact we aimed for from the start.

"We also hope this achievement gives courage and faith to the many other businesses like ours that have battled through the startup curve, not least those in the UK trying to make a break on the global stage."

"My involvement in the Responsible Travel  Networking will not change and I’ve been truly touched by the incredible support from my co-founders in that community all of whom are confident that this is the break we’ve been building towards, both with Tripbod and with the RT community.

Adam Medros, senior vice president for global product at TripAdvisor, said: "The Tripbod team understands the important role a strong community plays in helping travelers plan and have the perfect trip.

Interestingly, Broom also told us that Tripbod has no trouble at all finding travelers, the key to her business, and the further development with Tripadvisor  is the number of Tripbods – which is already "thousands".

Watch the Tripadvisor destination space – with in excess of 260million unique users a month – it could be bulking out very rapidly indeed.

Valere Tjolle

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