Trip Advisor

TripAdvisor.com is the world's largest travel site that assists customers in gathering travel information, posting reviews and opinions of travel related content and engaging in interactive travel forums. TripAdvisor.com is part of the TripAdvisor Media Group, operated by Expedia, Inc. TripAdvisor is a pioneer of user-generated content. The website services are free to users, who provide most of the content, and the website is supported by an advertising business model.


TripAdvisor Media Group operates 17 travel brands including TripAdvisor, Airfarewatchdog, BookingBuddy, Cruise Critic, Family Vacation Critic, FlipKey, Holiday Lettings, Holiday Watchdog, Independent Traveler, OneTime, SeatGuru, SmarterTravel, SniqueAway, Travel Library, TravelPod, VirtualTourist and Kuxun.cn. TripAdvisor operates websites internationally, including in the U.S., the U.K., France, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Spain, India, Japan, Portugal, Brazil, Sweden, The Netherlands, Canada, Denmark, Turkey, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Russia, Greece, Indonesia, and in China under the brand daodao.com and kuxun.cn. TripAdvisor is headquartered in Newton, Massachusetts.


TripAdvisor was founded in February 2000 by Stephen Kaufer. Original financing was obtained from Flagship Ventures, the Bollard Group and private investors. The company was purchased by InterActive Corporation in 2004. IAC spun off its travel group of businesses under the Expedia, Inc. name in August 2005. In May 2007 TripAdvisor acquired Smarter Travel Media operator of SmarterTravel.com and BookingBuddy.com; SeatGuru.com; TravelPod.com; and Travel-Library.com Also in May 2007, TripAdvisor acquired The Independent Traveler, Inc., publisher of Cruise Critic.com and IndependentTraveler.com In February 2008, TripAdvisor acquired Holiday Watchdog a user-generated travel site in the U.K. In July 2008, TripAdvisor acquired Virtualtourist, a travel website with reportedly over 1 million registered members and OneTime.com a travel comparison site. In July 2008 TripAdvisor acquired a majority stake in FlipKey.com, a vacation-rental website. In October 2009, TripAdvisor purchased Kuxun.cn, China’s second-largest consumer travel site and hotel and flight search engine. In June 2010, TripAdvisor acquired the United Kingdom's largest independent vacation rental website, holidaylettings.co.uk. In September 2010, SmarterTravel, part of TripAdvisor Media Group, launched SniqueAway, the first members-only site where each travel deal is endorsed by the people. In April 2011, it was announced that Expedia would split into two publicly traded companies by spinning off the TripAdvisor brand of travel sites. According to Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, the move, "allows the two businesses to be pure plays and to operate with the proper amount of focus to grow respectively.


From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TripAdvisor
http://www.tripadvisor.com/

A Hotel - A Place; A Palace and A Haven

The word hotel is derived from the French hôtel (coming from hôte meaning host), which referred to a French version of a townhouse or any other building seeing frequent visitors, rather than a place offering accommodation. In contemporary French usage, hôtel now has the same meaning as the English term, and hôtel particulier is used for the old meaning. The French spelling, with the circumflex, was also used in English, but is now rare. The circumflex replaces the 's' found in the earlier hostel spelling, which over time took on a new, but closely related meaning. Grammatically, hotels usually take the definite article - hence "The Astoria Hotel" or simply "The Astoria."

Hotel operations vary in size, function, and cost. Most hotels and major hospitality companies that operate hotels have set widely accepted industry standards to classify hotel types.


The management of a hotel operation is considered a major business operation. Larger hotels may operate similar to a large company with an extensive management structure consisting of a General Manager which serves as the head executive, department heads that oversee various departments, middle managers, administrative staff, and line-level supervisors. Degree programs such as hospitality management studies, a business degree, and/or certification programs prepare hotel managers for industry practice.


Hotels come in different types, there are those who are valuably in for your taste and others are in the form of unusual size to fit the crazy thinking of the human kind when entering the place.






article from wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel