TripAdvisor Buys Vacation Rental Platform HouseTrip

On April 27, TripAdvisor purchased UK-based HouseTrip for an undisclosed fee.

The company is expected to sit within the Vacation Rentals Group of TripAdvisor, alongside the likes of FlipKey, HolidayLettings and VacationHomeRentals.

HouseTrip has managed to secure almost $60 million in funding since its creation in 2009. A TripAdvisor official says HouseTrip currently has around 130,000 properties on the site. Around 300,000 homes have listed on the site during the course of the brand’s seven-year history.

TripAdvisor says it is currently carrying out an “in-depth analysis of its structure and resources, including personnel”, so no decisions have been made as to the fate of the company’s management or staff.

HouseTrip will continue to operate as a standalone brand, but its inventory will be shared across TripAdvisor rental sites.

Dermot Halpin, president for TripAdvisor Vacation Rentals, says,“We’re committed to growing TripAdvisor Vacation Rentals and providing travellers with the best possible selection of high quality homes, no matter their destination or budget. HouseTrip brings valuable choices to our travelers, particularly those visiting Europe, and we’re excited to continue expanding beyond the nearly 800,000 properties we list now.”

TripAdvisor is getting a company that claims to have made a couple of promising innovations. In recent months, HouseTrip has experimented with “using neural networks for ranking search results.”Its programmatic email campaigns report above-average results for the industry, too. In February, Housetrip told MarketingWeek that its email campaigns, powered by Criteo’s systems, are responsible for 2% of total bookings in Britain and Spain and regularly reach 600,000 unique users.

Meanwhile, in a message to HouseTrip members, the company says today,“with TripAdvisor’s holiday rental expertise, we’re certain that this move will be highly beneficial for all our hosts.”