(04 April 2008) Lastminute.com is to add user reviews to its website along with thousands of new hotels before the end of the year.
Chief operations officer Ed Kamm said the online travel agent was keen to differentiate its user content from what already exists on websites such as TripAdvisor.
Users will be able to order reviews by attributes, such as the type of traveller or purpose of trip. It will also be possible to read reviews written by travellers from the users´ own country only.
"People from different countries have very different perspectives. What a Spanish or French traveller rates as a five-star might be very far from what an American thinks is five-star," said Kamm.
To begin with, lastminute.com is likely to use reviews from an existing website.
"We need to get a lot of content up there quickly, then we will begin to refine it ourselves," he said.
Thousands of hotels will be added to the site before the end of the year across various destination, added Kamm. He named North Africa, Croatia and Bulgaria as growing hotspots.
Meanwhile, Sabre has completed the first phase of developing a common platform for its Travelocity and lastminute.com brands. This will make the business more streamlined and allow it to implement new technology across the brands more quickly.
