Touristlink.com announces new social features giving travelers more personalized access to small hotel and vacation rental owners.

(TRAVPR.COM) INDIA - January 28th, 2013 - Touristlink.com, a social network connecting travelers with local travel providers announces new features allowing providers to list hotels and vacation rentals alongside their social profiles. Providers will be able to upload property details along with pictures. Visitors to the page will be able to enquire about the room and interact directly with property owners before planning a trip. The new features provide a pathway for small property owners to focus on more personalized marketing to individual customers.

These new features aim to provide travelers the specific information they need before they look to book a property. Site founder, David Urmann, notes “Travel planning tools offered by traditional booking engines have been offering the same thing year after year and have yet to take advantage of the possibility of adding a social layer to booking. While this may not make sense for big hotel chains it can certainly be a positive for small properties looking to give personalized service.”

Although the site launched a year ago the Touristlink team waited for over a year to get sufficient traction before announcing plans to launch these new features. Since the site launched in October 2011 it has signed up over 5,000 local travel businesses, many of whom are offering their own deals on the platform. According to rankings on Alexa.com the site is now one of the largest social networks for travel.

Touristlink limits the service to enquires and passes these along free of cost to property owners unlike traditional booking engines which charge a commission for this service. The service is also different in that it does not allow members to search by availability, but its likely this service might appear soon according to the founders of the website.

Touristlink is a social marketplace for travel that lets travelers get to know firsthand the local behind the tour they are planning or the small hotel they want to stay. Travelers tired of generic tour offerings can get unique trip ideas and offers direct from local providers as well as see reviews and recommendations of the same provider from other travelers. Businesses benefit in that they get additional online exposure and can access a host of tools to help them engage customers on traditional social media platforms. It’s a great resource whether you want to get off the beaten path or just want to plan your own trip.

Touristlink is managed by GotripIndia and has versions in both Spanish (es.touristlink.com) and Portugese (Touristlink.com.br). 

###