Lonely Planet on Wednesday said it would acquire Trill
Travel for an undisclosed price.
Trill enables users to book travel
experiences based on content creators' Instagram posts. The content creator is
given a monetary reward every time their content sparks a booking. Trill uses
artificial intelligence to automatically link content to booking sites.
"We are looking at this acquisition from an asset
perspective -- we want to incorporate Trill's tech and capabilities into our
digital products and soon reimagine our Pathfinders program," Lonely
Planet president and CEO Luis Cabrera said in a statement.
Pathfinders is Lonely Planet's network of travel bloggers,
photographers, videographers and social media experts that create content and
contribute to its online community.
According to Lonely Planet, it will adopt the revenue-sharing
model that Trill uses, which pays commissions for bookings tied to individual
posts.
"This dual-sided marketplace helps travel brands drive
direct bookings through organic social content, and acts as a monetization
platform for content creators," Cabrera said.
Trill founder and CEO Eric Shepard will report to Cabrera.
Lonely Planet said he will have a large role with the company's venture experiments,
the first being integrating Trill into Lonely Planet's digital properties.
"With this acquisition, Lonely Planet is bridging the
gap between those wanderlusting and those on the road by streamlining the
booking process through a powerful visual search mechanism," Lonely Planet
said in a statement.