App

Many people use Tripadvisor.com app on their iOS or Android mobile phones. The app provides access to travel planning, booking and to plenty of local information, provided by guides, travelers and businesses, which is the essence of Tripadvisor website.

Fig. 1 - Tripadvisor.com App

With so many businesses listed, property owners and managers are a large part of Tripadvsor's users. They list and manage their businesses and have to regularly respond to guest reviews and questions. They can use the same above mentioned app, which has a Management Center Home designed for them.

Extensions

The browser extensions are small pieces of software which add functionality to a browser. They are browser specific so you should find extensions which work with your browser. Here we are interested in extensions which interact with Tripadvisor.com website.

There is an official Tripadvisor extension for Chrome, called the Tripadvisor Browser Button. This must be a useful extension for a regular user of Tripadvisor. When browsing any hotel, restaurant or activity website, just click on the Tripadvisor button to open a side window with relevant Tripadvisor reviews. The button also helps to keep track of prices and has quick links to main sections of Tripadvisor site for ease of access.

If interested you can make a google search for: "Tripadvisor.com extensions for Chrome" (or replace "Chrome" with your browser). Note that other extensions are usually third party software.

Using Website

For the purpose of our directory we list Tripadvisor as a travel meta search engine, which in part is, but we all know Tripadvisor as the leading websites for travelers generated content as reviews and guides.

Travel search on Tripadvisor includes all kinds of lodging, flights, car rentals, cruises and activities.

In some areas, like vacation rentals, Tripadvisor has a strong offer, which derives from Tripadvisor Group's flipkey.com​,​ holidaylettings.co.uk​ and niumba.com​. In other areas, like car rentals, the offer is limited to searching one site, Rentalcars.com, and featuring, sometimes annoying, advertising.

Practically anything mentioned on Tripadvisor can get user reviews, think about places, hotels, airlines, restaurants, activities, etc. Users can also share forum posts, local guides, pictures.

This large amount of users generated information is a great knowledge base for travelers nevertheless some caution is required. For instance anyone can write reviews on Tripadvisor so it's quite easy to manipulate reviews for, or against, someone's business. Own judgement and double checking of users provided information is a good practice to avoid disappointments.