Headlines:

trivago wins Red Herring 100 Europe Award

The European travel website trivago is one of Europe’s most promising young internet companies according to Red Herring. With the cost-free internet service travelers always find the accommodation of their choice at the lowest available rate.

Duesseldorf, 15 April 2008. trivago convinced the Red Herring jury with its innovative online service for travelers; the trivago hotel finder shows the hotel prices of online booking partners like expedia, booking.com or ebookers for 270,000 hotels worldwide. Travelers save 32 percent on average per booking. The judges were also impressed by the fact that apart from its user friendly accommodation search and booking function, trivago has a 45.000 strong European-wide community which spends an average of 20,000 hours a month creating travel reports, guides, tips and reviews. This enables consumers to check out independent reviews on hotels and destinations from trivago’s growing social network members.  The media company Red Herring yearly recognizes the top 100 most innovative technology companies. Amongst earlier prominent Red Herring winners are ebay, Google and Skype.
Malte Siewert, co-founder and director of trivago, comments on the award as follows:

“We feel honoured by this prize. I am very happy that we won despite the very high quality of the other entrants. The win validates our strategy of striving to
become one of Europe’s leading travel market consumer champions.”

Travolution, TravelWeekly and others have recently featured articles about the dynamic Germany-based company trivago. Not only has trivago been in the News , but it is also shortlisted as one of the top 100 finalists for the Red Herring Award in the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East, Africa).

Meta price comparisons - quick, unique and saving you money

Have you ever booked a hotel room and then later found out that another offer from a different agency would have been cheaper? This would not be surprising, as the price differences are often great. Differences of up to one hundred Euros per room and night are not surprising. Online travel agencies on the other hand make a price search almost impossible, through a very large amount of offers. At trivago the customer can compare prices with one mouse click. With a unique meta price comparison for hotels, the client searching can find the cheapest deal from different well known booking platforms. Even people that prefer to book directly through hotels should also check out trivago first. Often intermediaries can offer better prices than the hotel itself. Those visitors who know exactly what they want, can use different criteria to narrow down the search to suit their individual needs.

What do visitors find at trivago?

Thanks to the trivago community, visitors can find personal travel reports, holiday photos, hotel, restaurant and destination evaluations, beyond compare. No sales driven travel agent has a say in this, only the travelers with their personal recommendations. Therefore, an honest impression of the next holiday destination develops because of the fact that trivago members write and judge only that information which they share between themselves.

Every member engaged in the community also benefits financially, as the community shares a large part of the commission from hotel recommendations. Active users can therefore contribute to their travel funds, and again use their newly gained travel information for the community. The Travel 2.0 portal trivago has added a Greek platform to its growing family which already includes English, German, French, Spanish, Swedish, Polish and Italian communities. Further expansion is already in planning.

Recently published in the Guardian:

“Germany-based Trivago combines reviews, stories and photos from travelers with e-commerce services like hotel booking. It’s not the only service in the very busy and lucrative travel vertical, but it has a loyal 40,000 followers that spend 20,000 hours on the site each month because of the heavy user-content approach.
Founded in April 2005, the site employs 21 staff including 10 country managers for its localized European versions including the UK, France, Germany and Sweden. The Dusseldorf-based firm has already had one round of funding from investors including the Samwer Brothers, who recently invested more than $10m in Facebook, and raised second round from Howzat, run by the Cheapflights.co.uk entrepreneurs.”

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Top 10 travel guidebooks

1. Time Out

The must-have city guide - irreverent, entertaining and written by locals.

2. Bradt

Go to the places other guidebooks don’t visit, eg. Kosovo, Congo.

3. Lonely Planet

(Creative entries aside), concise, entertaining and easy to use.

4. Rough Guides

The backpacker’s choice. A broad range of budget-focused information.

5. LUXE City Guides

Sex and the City in a handbook. A mini marvel that fits in your handbag.

6. Footprint

Forget the glossy photos, sober yet jam-packed with details - especially good on South America.

7. Dorling Kindersley

Ones to keep and collect. King of the 3D map - an aesthetic rather than practical pleasure.

8. Good Hotel Guide

Independent reviews - guided by readers’ tips. Include discount vouchers.

9. Inyourpocket.com

Death of the guidebook? Pah! They’re just diversifying. Print off your own PDFs…

10. (Second-hand) Baedeker

But why go mainstream? For an old-school delight, travel like a Victorian with one of the first guide books.

KATHLEEN WYATT, Times Travel Editor

The best pub in Britain (official)

A 100-year-old inn has won the 2008 Pub of the Year award from the Campaign for Real Ale, despite having no juke box, pool table, fruit machine or “theme”.

The Old Spot Inn in Dursley, Gloucestershire, has been successful by refusing to follow fashion.

Steve Herbert, the licensee, said: “Although we do food during the week we would never call ourselves a gastropub. Our drinkers come first, which is why the food stops at 8pm during the week. We don’t do chips either.

“Being born and bred in Dursley means a lot to me and to be able to bring this award to this wonderful pub gives me a great sense of achievement.”

See the video & read the full article at TIMESONLINE

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