The Travel Advice Network

If you have followed my blog at all over the years you've seen me refer to TripAdvisor, a lot. So I thought it would be interesting to see where all of that began. Back in 2000 several cofounders including Steve Kaufer who is presently the President and CEO started out with more of an experiment in building a data base for travel information and grew TripAdvisor into a consumer driven review site. At one point, it was owned by Expedia but it gets much more complicated.

The TripAdvisor Media Group that has been established now includes many of the sites that I depend upon for information. Smarter Travel and Cruise Critic being the main ones as well as Independent Traveler, Seat Guru, Vacation Home Rentals, and the list goes on. Who knew? Not me--until I began my researching.

I was going to give you a history of Cruise Critic as well which actually began back in 1995 but has now been incorporated into the over all family of TripAdvisor Media Group.

I'm sure they operate independent of each other but still, it makes me wonder how much my consumer dollar is being drawn into one specific group. The TripAdvisor Media Group was praised for its growth and expansion in an article from 2012 that I found on The Harvard Business Review site. For those of you who understand the business end and the technical fields better it might be an interesting read.

For now I will continue to search and review through TripAdvisor. While it seems to be cornering the market online for travel, I still think it is one of the best places to do your research before taking a trip.