TripAdvisor Surges on Hotels Partnership With Priceline

Integration work has already begun to support Priceline Group hotel properties, which should be available on TripAdvisor’s instant booking platform soon.

Priceline Group Inc. agreed to weave much of its hotel inventory into TripAdvisor Inc.’s new booking platform, offering the travel review website a potentially massive source of new business.

TripAdvisor went live with its Instant Booking feature last June with inventory from Choice Hotels worldwide, later adding Best Western and Travelport listings.

The move means Tripadvisor users will now be able to book more than 700,000 hotels directly, without having to click through to a third-party site.

TripAdvisor (TRIP) shares gain more than 22% in trading Wednesday after announcing a strategic partnership with Priceline (PCLN) that allows a few of Priceline’s online travel brands to participate with TripAdvisor’s instant booking platform. Priceline Group has partners in over 200 countries through its brands such as Booking.com, priceline.com, Kayak, agoda.com, rentalcars.com and OpenTable.

“TripAdvisor has been a long-time partner of The Priceline Group and today’s announcement is part of the continued positive evolution of that relationship”. The Needham-based company will notify customers that their hotel booking is powered by Booking.com, and Booking.com representatives will handle the customer relations. Our mission is to help people experience the world, and we are constantly innovating how and where we engage with consumers to help them do this.

Shortly after the open, shares of Priceline recently traded at $1,349.74, up about 0.35 percent.

Just before 10 a.m. Wednesday the TripAdvisor stock price was up almost 20 percent, to $80.