Nobody wants to pay extra money for something that they could get for cheap. This is simply because they want to get the best deal. What is the point of paying more for something you could have gotten for less? It doesn’t make any sense. But how would you know that you could get something for a cheaper price than what is actually being offered? Most people would not know. They have to do lots of research to find out where they could get for cheap. But in the current world, it has become easier to find the best deals for the products you like compared to the past. There are many websites and applications that offer the products you want. You can just simply go to each one of those websites and see where you are getting the best deal and from that website.
This is true not only to products but also for everything else. There are many websites that allow you to find flight tickets, books, and other stuff for cheaper rates. You can also find websites that show you the rates that are being offered by different websites for the same product. There is a similar website that allows you to find the best deals on hotels. This is a great thing because finding a good hotel in a city that you have never been to is a daunting task. Just imagine how hard it was for you to find a hotel when you have gone to a new place. You must have gone to at least two or three hotels before you decided to stay in one. But if you want to know the best that you could have gotten then you should use Trivago.
Let’s find out how this platform works and makes money.
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What is Trivago?
Before getting to know the business model and it’s money generation methods you should first know about how it all started. This company was first launched in Germany. In fact, it is the first hotel search engine in Germany. It was founded by Peter Vennermeier, Malte Siewert, and Rolph Schrömgens. Before finding Trivago Rolph Schrömgens founded an online shopping website called Ciao. But he quickly realized that it was very costly to maintain the content on an online e-commerce platform. So he wanted to come within a platform on which the brands could manage their own content. After this, he teamed up with three of his college friends Malte Siewert, Peter Vennermeier, and Stephan Stunner, and founded Trivago in 2005. Shortly after the company was founded Stephan Stubner left it. The headquarters of the company is located in Düsseldorp and more than 90% of its employees work from there.
All of the major operations of the company are carried out at this place. But this was not the first site of its kind. Before Trivago was launched there were already some prominent hotel search engines like Orbitz and Expedia which were gaining popularity. Trivago got its idea from there. Even though it was younger than these other websites it has managed to gain popularity in a short period of time. People loved this website because they could see the prices for which they can get a hotel room. Not only that it would allow you to read reviews, look at high-resolution images of the rooms, and also see the other services they had to offer. Today Trivago is one of the most successful and popular hotel search engine sites in the world. Currently, it operates in 190 countries and covers more than 400 websites.
Business model of Trivago
As mentioned earlier Trivago is a hotel search engine it has to provide services to two types of customers that are hotels and customers. It offers big brands and other hotels to showcase what they have to through Trivago. These hotels would get the exposure that they otherwise wouldn’t have got if they didn’t make bookings available online. But since the customers are the ones that have to book the hotel there are few things that they have to take care of if they want to run the business. Let’s look at the essential things that make up Trivago’s business model.
Availability
This is one of the best decisions that Trivago has made. It makes itself available for all the clients. Instead of them writing about you they allow you to write about your own website. They allow you to include the content from your websites. Not only that it also allows you to include the brand that is not present on the website. You can depict your brand in the way you wish to. If your profile is unfinished Trivago allows you to complete it. If you don’t think your profile is a reflection of the quality of service you offer then you can change it too.
Customization
This is one of the things that Trivago offers that people don’t know about. Any brand or hotel is given the power to customize their profiles. This is a great feature as the brands don’t have to be worried about how they are showcased. It is also great because they can change their profiles whenever they want according to season. Hotels that in some tourist places are not always getting the number of customers they want. During off-seasons, they have to make sure that they attract enough customers to keep the hotel running. So they have to change their profiles in order to attract customers. Customers choose a hotel by looking at their profile. Through customization they can reach the customers they are looking for.
Accommodation
This is the main thing that Trivago was built for. It was founded so that people can find hotels in the destinations that they want to travel to. Trivago has enough hotels and brands to satisfy the requirements of customers belonging to all economic levels. So it doesn’t allow only some types of hotels to be a part of it. Trivago makes sure that it has enough hotels to pander to attract all types of customers. Customers can actually choose hotels depending on their needs. They can even filter the hotels according to their wish.
Brand
Not just the things that it gas to offer but the name itself is one of the most important things that helps Trivago in its business. To attract more and more customers whether it is a hotel or a person it has to become popular. Trivago has been founded more than a decade ago and since then it has been successful in creating a name for itself. In the current market, Trivago is one of the most popular websites in the world to search hotel rooms. Not only hotels but it also give out information about tourist destinations. It offers millions of photos of thousands of hotels and innumerable reviews about them.
Subsidiary partners
Trivago partners with other people to promote their offers. They encourage third parties to show their offers on through the platforms that they own or associated with. These third-party users promote the listings on their websites. When the customers use their affiliate links to book a hotel these sites are offered a small percentage of the profit of Trivago as commission.
Quality test partners
Trivago uses quality tester to provide better service to their customers in the future. These quality test partners are none other than the customers themselves. Who better to tell you about the quality of the hotel than the customers who stay in them? The customers can join to take surveys about the hotels they are staying in. Once they have finished their stay in a hotel they can take a survey and answer a few questions. By doing this they will be paid a through PayPal or get additional discounts and other exciting rewards.
How does Trivago make money?
There are three ways in which Trivago makes money. Let’s look go through them one by one.
Referrals
Many people think that Trivago is a place where people can book hotels. But it is not completely accurate. It is a website that allows the hotels to list their offers. People can go to Trivago and search for hotels. These people when clicking on the listed offers will be referred to the website of that hotel or an online travel agency. After they are referred to the advertiser’s website the customer has to select a deal that it has to offers. Once he does that the hotel pays money to Trivago for every successful referral. Most of the revenue generated by Trivago is through referrals.
Subscription fees
Many people don’t know about this but Trivago has subscription fees. This is not for the customers but for the hotels. As mentioned earlier Trivago allows the hotels to customize their profiles according to their wish. This helps them to reach their target customers in a better way. Trivago charges a subscription fee from hotels who want these services.
Listing fees
Not every hotel pays the subscription fee but they all pay a listing fee. Every hotel or brand has to pay a particular amount to list their services on Trivago’s website.
Conclusion
This is the business model of Trivago. It is one of the fastest-growing hotel search engines in the world. The business model of Trivago is mostly an aggregate business model. You can look at our other articles to know about the other business models such as the business model of YouTube.
