If you haven’t heard, Facebook has teamed up with the world’s largest travel review website, TripAdvisor, to develop a customized travel profile that is designed to help users make more informed travel decisions. The new layout makes it easy and convenient for users to read ratings, reviews or tips from their Facebook friends.

Wondering how it works?
To enter into a customized TripAdvisor page, users must first log into their Facebook account using either website. After doing this, the following design will appear when entering TripAdvisor.com….

As seen through the image, there are three main features users can expect to see with this integrated platform, including:

• A map on the homepage revealing where your friends have been
• A destination’s tourism page on TripAdvisor to uncover all the valuable, insightful comments written by people you know
• Reviews written by your friends about any one place

So now when travelers are researching a specific location, they can see their Facebook friends’ reviews and tips first. Additionally, this will be the perfect place to start researching for people who want to see where their Facebook friends have traveled to get a little inspiration for their next trip.The pin points on the map are gathered through the profiles of those that use TripAdvisor’s “Cities I’ve Visited” app.

Social media and travel
This integration should be a clear indication that social networks do in fact play a role in the travel planning experience. Afterall, researchers at PhocusWright™ did state that Facebook made Hilton Hotel’s list of top ten referrers. So now instead of rummaging through the endless amount of profiles, comments and pictures found on Facebook for travel advice, it’s all in one place — on the world’s largest travel review website. As much as I hate to see Facebook slowly integrate into every aspect of my online life, I can see how this joint venture could be useful, especially for those that have Facebook friends who use TripAdvisor on a regular basis and are actually influential sources (…and not an old friend from high school who you haven’t talked to in 15 years).

When I logged into TripAdvisor to test out the new features, I was actually really surprised to see how many of my friends have used and posted reviews on TripAdvisor. How many of you think that you would use this new feature?

Written by Jacquelynn M.