trivago.co.uk

This review is one of the longest I ever wrote. Don't be frightened away - if you want to earn some extra cash you will find it worth reading - especially part two.

0. Background

It was about two years ago when three former employees of Ciao Germany split up with one of Europe's best know consumer communities to launch their own project. It was born from the idea that the travel industry is one that can really cast off profits. But the system of Ciao didn't allow the necessary specialization in this sector to turn travel bookings into a source of income. So Rolf, Peter and Stephan started trivago.

The concept:
Trivago builds an online portal which provides travellers a vast knowledgebase of travellers' reviews and comprehensive source of information on all types of accommodation and touristic attractions and forwards visitors of the page to travel agents and tour operators who have to pay booking commissions to trivago.

Since this is far more than 3 people can accomplish, a community was established which develops and administers trivago and receives 50% of trivago's total earnings to distribute among its members. In December 2004 the German version of the platform started off and now the website is also available to English-speaking users under trivago.co.uk.

What makes trivago special?

To explain what makes trivago exceptional, like with Ciao, it is necessary to look at trivago from two different angles: For one, the point of view of a traveller seeking information and good deals on hotels and for the other, the point of view a community member.

1. Trivago Is For Travellers
As a unregistered user of the website you can find user's reviews of any kind not only about accommodation like hotels, B&Bs, vacation homes, inns but also opinions on museums, restaurants, nightclubs, theatres… simply everything that can possibly be interesting to the traveller. If you have found a hotel on trivago which you like you can book it right away - a number of booking partners offer you prices. You compare and just choose the best deal. Apart from that you can browse local attractions at your travel destination and pick the best restaurants, the most interesting places to see and whatever you like, based on the reviews of the users who already published their opinion on trivago.

In addition you will find information links, pictures uploaded by other travellers and a special feature unique to trivago: reviews from external sources like travel guide books, magazines and private websites which are all incorporated into the overall rating of the rated objects in the way a user's review would be.

Furthermore, hotels can be searched and sorted by a huge number of criteria. If you can't travel without having your cat around just chose hotels which allow pets. You're looking for a vacation which can be enjoyed by yourself as well as by your children? Search for hotels that offer child minding, a playground and a mini club. You're on a business trip with your car and looking for a good place to stay adjacent to the motorway? No, problem - trivago knows them. Love to relax on the putting green? It has never been easier than that: Select hotels which have a golfing club on their own or one nearby. Fancy a classy and extravagant interior? See trivago's list of design hotels… Before I get carried away with that let me put the point: the possibilities are endless.

And when you come back from your trip you can let others know what you have seen, let everybody know how this allegedly up-market hotel you booked really looks like or tell about the romantic little restaurant you discovered in some backyard of Barcelona - no registration is required for that. Anyone can leave an anonymous review.

Trivago is independent
Even though trivago lives on booking provisions neutrality and unbiasedness of trivago is ensured by the fact that accomodation on trivago is not limited to a certain selection of hotels like with all other travel providers and agencies. So if one hotel is rated bad, customers can just select one that is more appealing. So a bad rating for a hotel is actually a warning, that will be appreciated by the clients and thus means added value for trivago.

Trivago addresses business travellers and vacationers alike and is not limited to a specific region or type of accomodation. If it's a 7-star hotel in the Middle East , a 3-room Bed and Breakfast on the Seychelles or a motel in the desert of Nevada - you name it, trivago has it. Trivago is quite new - it has been launched in January 2005 with its beta testing phase and went live in June 2005. So there are still gaps in the database to be filled. This work is done by the community which leads me to the next chapter. (If you like sharing your experience with the world and are appealed by the idea of earning some money from that, read carefully…)

2. Trivago Is For Community Members
Anyone can review hotels and attractions on trivago without being a registered user. But if you decide to sign up you become part of the community and will be able to contribute to a greater extend. Registration is free and done within a minute. The community is pivotal to trivago, and you are not degraded to right less review-writers. The users themselves play an important role in administering and marketing the platform. Some of the tasks members can fulfil are uploading pictures, rating reviews, adding hotels and attractions, linking external reviews and information pages or placing partner links - to name only a few.

If you are used to be limited to writing and rating reviews on ciao a whole new world of possibilities will reveal to you on trivago. Trivago features a couple of new and exiting concepts. For instance trivago's system of user levels. It's completely different from anything you know from platforms like Ciao and there's far more to it than colourful dots next to your user name....

Every newly registered user starts with user level 1 where one can write personalized reviews, upload pictures or place partner links. You reach level 2 as soon as you have written two reviews and collected 250 status shares. On level 2 you can already add your favourite places to the database to be reviewed by anyone; restaurants and bars in your neighbourhood, national parks or museums all over the world - anything that could possibly be of interest for travellers. It's up to you. New administrative rights and more powerful functions will unlock as you climb up in rank, giving you the possibility to make trivago what you want it to be.

To maintain a high quality of service to visitors of the website every user's work is checked over by another member of the community. And it's the users themselves who decide if another member is ready to be promoted to the next user level. The whole community is self-governed and self-administrated. I've been a member since January 2005 and I can tell you: it's fun to contribute to trivago's development and to see it growing day by day.

You find that all to complicated? Don't even bother. One of the new and exiting community features trivago has introduced is a mentoring program. In the course of this program users of higher levels are officially assigned to freshmen as their mentors to help and assist them with their first steps and even further.

You don't have to be a travelling expert to join trivago. The main focus of the community is building the database and administering the website rather than writing loads of reviews.

Some readers of this review asked me whether they can use their reviews from ciao and other plattforms on trivago as well. YES, that is possible, as long as your are reviewing a specific hotel or touristic attraction (like restaurants, museums, parks, nature spots etc). The focus of trivago lies on travel, so don't expect to get paid for reviews on frozen pizzas ;-)

Now for the important part:
How does one benefit from trivago?

Payment is another aspect in which trivago is different from platforms like ciao where a fixed amount is paid for ratings. Trivago earns money from bookings made through its partners. A certain share of the price of a hotel or trip booked over the website goes to trivago. Half of this income is used by Trivago Ltd to cover expenses, maintain the infrastructure and everything. The other half is fully distributed among the community members. The share one gets from this pot depends on one self's activity (and of course to a certain extend on the activity of all other community members).

Every single action on the platform - from uploading pictures to mentoring newbies - is rewarded with a certain amount of status shares. Additionally there are bonus shares for things like inviting friends, attracting visitors to the platform through partner links or mentoring other users. The total number of all shares a user collects during a given period defines the share he/she will receive when it comes to distributing the "community pot". The payments are done on a bimonthly basis.

In the two months of August and September 2006 I earned more than 200 Euros (over 140 Pounds) on trivago! A few top users even collect up to 500 Euros per month. Think about how much you earned from ciao during that time ;-). By the way, only less than 1% came from "traditional activities" like posting reviews and pictures. The vast majority of the amount was generated through administrative tasks.

And YES, they really pay! Disbursments are made through wire transfer or paypal (free account with paypal is required).

Since trivago is still growing, the number of bookings and thus the total income will massively increase in the near future. So be quick and become one of the first users of trivago UK. I never regretted becoming part of this fresh and vibrant community. I like the new and innovative concept of the platform and I had a lot of fun in the last couple of month.

---
A final tip before you go and sign up: I already mentioned the mentor's program. If you would let me invite you to trivago, I'd be happy to send you my referral link and I will automatically become your mentor.