Tripster News

St. Louis, Missouri – October 28, 2016 –Tripster is celebrating 15 years of providing travelers with complete vacation planning and booking services. Since the launch of its first destination in Branson, Missouri, the now fifteen year old travel company is settings its sights on even more growth.  After an initial  three years as a single market provider, the company  launched 12 new markets in as many years, growing revenues over $32 million annually.  Now with more than 40 employees, the company is targeting more destinations where customers can benefit from their complete destination planning services.

With an average of almost one hundred thousand vacations processed annually, Tripster has been building a large customer following, enhanced by its recent branding  and marketing campaigns geared to engage those travelers even more.  These customers look to Tripster for its first-hand reviews and insight, now featuring almost 5,000 travel articles that offer tips, news, and shared experiences.  And, with a customer rating of over 98%, these happy travelers are proving to be the key to Tripster’s  success.

“It’s great to be here 15 years later, celebrating the success of Tripster,” said John Johnson, Founder and President of Tripster.  “We took the concierge concept and moved it into the dynamic space of the Internet at a time when nobody was serving that niche online.  And we thrived not only because of our attention to usability and technology, but mainly because we love what we do.  We love to travel and we find great satisfaction  making our customers’ vacation experience better.”

In its 15 years, the company has contracted with over 2,000  travel products. Partnerships feature some of the most popular tourist attractions in the country, including Walt Disney World®, Herschend Family Entertainment, Ripley® Entertainment, Busch Gardens® and SeaWorld® Entertainment. Because Reserve Direct is focused on complete destination planning, they also provide  many local adventures, tours, and other experience-based attractions. Whether your vacation includes taking the family to LEGOLAND®, a Broadway show in New York City, a zipline through the Smoky Mountains, or whale watching off the coast of Maui, Reserve Direct helps travelers find the experience they desire.

Beyond their consumer-direct model, Tripster continues to enhance and expand its efforts in providing white label reservation services.  Using their proprietary system, and repurposing it for travel suppliers, hotels, theme parks and even Destination Marketing Organizations, the company provides an instrumental piece of vacation planning:fulfillment.  With over 240 white labels positioned  throughout all of their markets—generating nearly 40% of its revenues—travel suppliers are able to seamlessly partner and package with each other to increase their own online conversions.

As they celebrate the milestone, the company is already looking forward to the launch of several new markets to include San Francisco, Las Vegas, Toronto and Washington D.C., to name a few. Further, Tripster plans to become even more a part of the consumer vacation with the development of an app to enhance the user experience, fulfillment, and bring added value to their services.  Likewise, initial development has begun  to integrate more of the travel component to their model with the addition of flights and rental cars to close the loop, from planning, booking, traveling, and experiencing as a whole—all through Tripster.

About Tripster

Since 2001, Tripster has provided more than 2.5 million travelers with destination-specific travel planning and reservation services for ticketed events, world-renowned theme parks, adventure activities, tours, theatrical and music shows, plus hotels and lodging. Using a proprietary booking engine, Tripster customers can access first-hand content and reviews to plan and book entire vacations within a single transaction. In addition, the Company also provides destination marketing organizations and travel suppliers reservation and packaging fulfillment services through white label versions of their proprietary system. Tripster is based in St. Louis MO and currently operates dedicated destination websites in Branson, MO; Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, TN; Myrtle Beach, SC; Williamsburg, VA; New York, NY; San Diego and Los Angeles, CA; Chicago, IL; the Hawaiian Islands; Destin, Panama City Beach, St. Augustine and Orlando, FL.

System Integration Facilitates Updates of Pricing, Availability
and Scheduling

St. Louis, Missouri – June 15, 2016 – Tripster, providing travelers with tickets to theme parks, shows, tours, activities and attractions as well as hotels and lodging in specific travel destinations, today detailed the benefits of its April 2016 partnership and booking system integration with Denver-based FareHarbor, LLC. The partnership provides a growing list of tour and activity travel suppliers with a dynamic solution to maintain their rates and availability, which seamlessly integrates on Tripster’s travel websites. This direct feed of traveler supplier data enhances the experience for both customers and suppliers as real-time data exchange improves the accuracy of pricing and availability, producing reliable, confirmed bookings.

FareHarbor services small and medium-sized travel suppliers with cloud-based software to schedule events, manage availability and make reservations directly on their clients’ websites. Specifically, FareHarbor clients access a platform to price their activities, schedule times, properly allocate staff and equipment, manage availability of activities and tours and, most importantly, access a plug-in for their customers to book tickets directly on travel supplier websites. Since its launch in 2013, FareHarbor’s software has been used to book tours in the U.S. and internationally. The family-run business employs 90 people in Honolulu, San Francisco, Denver, Minneapolis and Boston.

“We’re thrilled that our clients have a seamless way to enjoy the add-on booking opportunities provided by Tripster’s varied package options. Working with them offers a heightened connectivity option for FareHarbor clients as thousands of our tour and activity operators will have Tripster bookings flow automatically onto their FareHarbor dashboard. This eliminates manually entering bookings and maintains availability schedules in-house, ” said Lawrence Hester, CEO of FareHarbor, LLC.

Over 2,500 tours, attractions and excursions across North America currently use FareHarbor reservation system. Tripster plans to leverage the value of their customer list to launch new destination travel markets and improve the maintenance of tour and event activities in Tripster’s current 14 destinations. For example, in a market like Hawaii, Tripster and FareHarbor share up to 400 potential supplier accounts. These shared customers will benefit immediately from system management efficiencies and continued and instant delivery of reservations.

“Integrations with companies like FareHarbor are what set us apart from our competition and provides a higher level of service commitment to our travel suppliers,” said John Johnson, President of Tripster. ” Initial setup for FareHarbor clients will require less time and effort, as will ongoing account management . This makes Tripster a more attractive distribution channel and facilitates our services and benefits to existing FareHarbor clients.”

Unlike other online travel agencies that provide mostly air and hotels, Tripster’s niche is the activity element of travel—the reason why most people go on vacation. Customers buy their tickets, then add on their hotels as part of a package.

In addition to FareHarbor, Tripster has also integrated with ticketing systems such as Gateway Ticketing, Accesso, OmniTicket Network, as well as a variety of proprietary supplier systems.

About Tripster

Since 2001, Tripster has provided more than 2.5 million travelers with destination-specific travel planning and reservation services for ticketed events, world-renowned theme parks, adventure activities, tours, theatrical and music shows, plus hotels and lodging.  Using a proprietary booking engine, Tripster customers can access first-hand content and reviews to plan and book entire vacations within a single transaction.  In addition, the Company also provides destination marketing organizations and travel suppliers reservation and packaging fulfillment services through white label versions of their proprietary system.  Tripster is based in St. Louis MO and currently operates dedicated destination websites in Branson, MO; Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, TN; Myrtle Beach, SC; Williamsburg, VA; New York, NY; San Diego and Los Angeles, CA; Chicago, IL; the Hawaiian Islands; Destin, Panama City Beach, St. Augustine and Orlando, FL.

– Travel and Tourism Supplier Engagements Triple in the First Month
– Chicago’s 50+ Million Visitors a Year is a Top Three Traveled City in the US

St. Louis, Missouri – May 12, 2016 – Tripster, providing travelers tickets to theme parks, shows and attractions as well as hotels and lodging in specific travel destinations, today announced the launch of Chicago for the 50 million-plus visitors Chicago hosts every year. Chicago is Tripster’s second travel destination launched in the first four months of 2016, and the third ‘National Market’ destination opened by the Company over the last two years.

On February 14, 2016 Tripster enabled Chicago to promote and facilitate travel and tourism to Chicago. Over the course of two months, Tripster has been collaborating with  travel and tourism suppliers to develop extensive content on popular Chicago attractions including Skydeck Chicago, 360 Chicago, sightseeing tours, museums, Broadway shows, and hotels available throughout the ‘Windy City’. Different than other destination-travel websites, the tourism activities and attractions featured on the site can be reviewed, ticketed and booked directly on the Tripster website. Tripster’s roster of participating travel and tourism suppliers have increased three-fold since the end of April and each is actively providing information and content to Tripster to attract visitors and vacationers.

On May 1, 2016 the site was formally launched and promoted. Since its launch, www.tripster.com has successfully converted 5.0% of visitors to the site to Tripster customers who have booked their Chicago itineraries through Tripster. Tripster’s 5.0% conversation rate is more than twice the national average for on line travel sites in the U.S.  (Source: Adobe Analytics).

Chicago completes the Company footprint and nationwide exposure in the three largest cities in the U.S along with New York (2014) and Los Angeles (2015). This exposure equally benefits the hundreds of travel service providers and hotel operators who gain access to Tripster’s 2.5 million destination-traveling customers. Illinois-based Hostmark Hospitality Group, which operates upscale, full-service, boutique, luxury and service hotels is one of Tripster’s customers and a hotel operator featured in Chicago.

“Tripster gives our Chicago hotels a completely new marketing approach by selling Chicago as a destination and complements our promotion of our rooms within packages,” said Renee Wilhite, Senior Regional Director of Sales & Marketing with Hostmark Hospitality. “Tripster’s website is intuitive and constantly enhancing our customers’ travel planning experience which produces a steady flow potential guests. We anticipate attracting more destination travelers to our Chicago properties as a result and look forward to expanding our relationship with Tripster.”

Chicago joins Tripster’s current portfolio of 13 destination-travel cities. Tripster destinations are featured on content-rich websites and enabled by its proprietary reservation and ticketing engines. This combination provides travelers a self-serve environment to research and create their travel experience. Different than content-only travel portals that simply link visitors to local travel and tourism sites, Tripster consolidates bookings and information onto one, easy-to-navigate site that also features traveler testimonials, proprietary review and editorials, local insight, and multimedia.

“Travelers don’t just get an easy-to-use website—they get the first-hand knowledge and insight we share from traveling to these destinations ourselves,” said John Johnson, President of Tripster. “Sharing our experience and local expertise is an important value for travelers who rely on this show-and-tell content.  Destinations also benefit from this additional source of information and the widespread distribution of content on their destination. In terms of actual data, travelers stay longer, do more and spend more at destinations.”

Tripster has targeted several new destinations in the Company’s designated National, Regional and Seasonal markets in 2016. The Company’s platform connects its customers to more than 1,500 travel providers throughout its 13 current 13 destinations. Tripster customers seamlessly purchase a variety of travel supplier products and book their hotels with a secured credit card transaction under a single-user profile.

About Tripster

Since 2001, Tripster has provided more than 2.5 million travelers with destination-specific travel planning and reservation services for ticketed events, world-renowned theme parks, adventure activities, tours, theatrical and music shows, plus hotels and lodging.  Using a proprietary booking engine, Tripster customers can access first-hand content and reviews to plan and book entire vacations within a single transaction.  In addition, the Company also provides destination marketing organizations and travel suppliers reservation and packaging fulfillment services through white label versions of their proprietary system.  Tripster is based in St. Louis MO and currently operates dedicated destination websites in Branson, MO; Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, TN; Myrtle Beach, SC; Williamsburg, VA; New York, NY; San Diego and Los Angeles, CA; Chicago, IL; the Hawaiian Islands; Destin, Panama City Beach, St. Augustine and Orlando, FL.

Visitor Conversion Rates Increase 22% Year-over-Year and Produce an 81% Increase in Orders

St. Louis, Missouri – May 2, 2016 – Tripster, providing travelers access to ticketed events, attractions, shows and hotels in specific travel destinations, today announced the Company has recorded an approximate 50% increase in sales revenue for its first quarter, ended March 31, 2016. Revenue growth was attributed to its enhanced user experience (UX) through placement of destination-travel content, website design, and streamlined processing speeds. These factors are also credited with increased visitor conversion rates and orders processed on Tripster’s destination travel websites during the quarter.

In June 2015, Tripster’s management team included consumer usability and behavior testing as a part of its website development process. The Company’s commitment to ongoing conversion rate optimization provides constant split testing and usability studies, which serves as the framework to improve content placement, meet user intent, and boost processing speeds of their proprietary booking engine.

In September 2015, the implementation of the Tripster’s back-end coding and front-end user interface updates began producing increased visitor conversion rates. For the three-month period ended March 31, 2016, the Company recorded a 22% year-over-year increase in visitor conversion rates and an 81% increase in captured orders. Tripster processed 10,755 more orders in the first quarter of 2016 versus the same period prior year.

“The rate at which our business and markets are growing requires we constantly leverage our software’s ability to convert customers while simultaneously connecting an ever-increasing list of suppliers,” stated John Johnson, President of Tripster. “Expanding the back-end software and constantly improving the front–end UX helps customers easily access the content and insight we provide on our destinations and significantly facilitates the bookings of our customers’ choices at each. Customers and partners alike will continually benefit from these enhancements.”

In addition to ongoing website optimization throughout 2016, Tripster has targeted a series of new destination markets to take advantage of their marketing enhancements. Tripster’s platform connects its customers to more than 1,500 travel providers throughout its 12 national, regional and seasonal markets it currently serves. Tripster customers seamlessly purchase a variety of travel supplier products and book their lodging with a secured credit card transaction under a single-user profile.

About Tripster

Since 2001, Tripster has provided more than 2.5 million travelers with destination-specific travel planning and reservation services for ticketed events, world-renowned theme parks, adventure activities, tours, theatrical and music shows, plus hotels and lodging. Using a proprietary booking engine, Tripster customers can access first-hand content and reviews to plan and book entire vacations within a single transaction. In addition, the Company also provides destination marketing organizations and travel suppliers reservation and packaging fulfillment services through white label versions of their proprietary system. Tripster is based in St. Louis MO and currently operates dedicated destination websites in Branson, MO; Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, TN; Myrtle Beach, SC; Williamsburg, VA; New York, NY; San Diego and Los Angeles, CA; Chicago, IL; the Hawaiian Islands; Destin, Panama City Beach, St. Augustine and Orlando, FL.

Launching its fifth new travel website in 2014, Tripster has expanded into New York. This marks the largest market in which Tripster operates and the fourth location along the east coast, joining Williamsburg, Virginia, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and St. Augustine, Florida. As the largest city in the US, expanding into New York City offers big opportunities for Tripster customers.

Similar to the other Tripster destinations, New York City offers attractions and hotels to travelers, but also sells Broadway show tickets, including Wicked, The Lion King, Mamma Mia!, and The Book of Mormon among many others. Travelers can bundle their Broadway shows with sightseeing tours, harbor cruises, and other tours and tickets for iconic New York City attractions.

Through its close relationships with travel suppliers, Tripster is able to provide unique offers for consumers in a one-stop-shop website. Additionally, its unique packaging model allows consumers to save even more when they package their ticketed activities with hotels.

“Tripster offers attractions and theaters a full-featured, yield management tool unlike any other reseller,” said Joey Robinson, Head of Sales & Marketing for Big Bus New York. “Their activity-first approach to destination sales is exciting and we are excited to be a part of their New York City website.”

With millions of tourists coming in from all over the world each year, New York City offers a greater opportunity to target international as well as domestic customers, especially for major attractions like the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, and the many museums in town.

“New York City as a tourist was much less intimidating than I thought it would be, but there is certainly a great deal of travel planning and choices to make,” explains John Johnson, President of Tripster. “With our proven vacation planning model, we aim to give you the confidence you need to book your Manhattan visit.” Many other New York travel suppliers have been extremely receptive to the Reserve Direct consumer and business model.

About Tripster

Tripster is a travel reservation company that markets and serves specific travel destinations to vacationers and businesses, offering local expertise, tickets for attractions, shows and events as well as lodging and hotels. The company also offers fulfillment tools to travel suppliers and other regional travel resources. Tripster is a privately held company, with offices in St Louis and Branson, Missouri.

Following the advice of Horace Greeley who proclaimed, “Go West, young man and grow up with the country,” Tripster has done just that with the launch of its new travel destination, San Diego. As a popular California destination, San Diego marks Tripster’s 12th market and first on the West Coast—not to mention its fourth new travel website in 2014. As with their other destinations, San Diego will feature Tripster’s unique approach to custom vacation planning, ease of booking, and travel deals for area attractions and hotels.

“We are excited to be a part of Tripster and their expansion to the West Coast,” said Jay Judal of the San Diego Zoo. “San Diego and the Zoo will benefit from their approach to destination marketing and direct-to-gate tickets.”

Rich in history and character, San Diego features some of the most popular attractions in the country to include the world famous San Diego Zoo, showcasing over 3700 animals, and the original SeaWorld marine life theme park which opened in 1964. The San Diego Harbor is home to Hornblower Cruises, the Maritime Museum, and the U.S.S. Midway, a retired Naval aircraft carrier. Other attractions throughout San Diego County, and available on Tripster are LEGOLAND California located in Carlsbad and Safari Park located in Escondido.

“As Tripster continues to grow, we are most interested in family vacation destinations that cater to our existing consumer base,” said John Johnson, President of Tripster. “San Diego is a natural fit for our model and sales strategies, and we are fortunate to have some great partnerships with world-renown travel products that also see the benefit of our model.”

Some of Tripster’s other destination websites, like Orlando and Williamsburg, already represent similar travel products like SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, Medieval Times, and Legoland Florida, offering the same travel services to customers.

About Tripster

Tripster is a travel reservation company that markets and serves specific travel destinations to vacationers and businesses, offering local expertise, tickets for attractions, shows and events as well as lodging and hotels. The company also offers fulfillment tools to travel suppliers and other regional travel resources. Tripster is a privately held company, with offices in St Louis and Branson, Missouri.

Tripster, a leader in travel reservations and booking solutions for travel suppliers for 13 years, honored Cary Aguilar June 1st for 10 years of service to the company. Cary, Tripster’s Accounting Manager, started with the company in June of 2004 and is the third employee to reach a ten year work anniversary.

Cary started as a call center agent for Tripster destinations.  During this time he attended Missouri State University in pursuit of a Bachelor of Science in Accounting.  In his third year with the company, a position opened in the accounting department of Tripster.  Cary quickly filled this position, and upon graduation was promoted as the company’s head Accountant.  As Tripster grew to include 10 destinations Cary was responsible for overseeing all product accounts, managing customer transactions and has taken the lead as human resources manager as well.  He is vital to both the supplier and customer aspects of Tripster, and has been a true asset to the company.

Noting his tenure, Cary stated “It doesn’t feel like 10 years, more like five.  Just goes to show time flies when you work for a company where you enjoy what you do.  Being a part of this company has allowed me to thrive both personally and professionally, for which I am grateful.”

“It’s been great having Cary on the team,” stated John Johnson, president of Tripster.  “His attention to detail and commitment to the company is what makes Tripster the reliable company it is today.” Tripster congratulates Cary on 10 years of dedicated service.

About Tripster

Tripster is a travel reservation technology company that focuses on specific travel destinations, offering local expertise and reservations for shows and attractions, as well as hotel reservations to vacationers, families and businesses. The company also offers fulfillment tools to travel suppliers and other regional travel resources. Tripster provides travel service in a variety of markets like Branson, Missouri; Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, Tennessee; Orlando, St. Augustine, Panama City Beach and Destin, Florida; Williamsburg, Virginia; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; San Diego, California and  the Hawaiian Islands.

It was 1565 when the first European settlers pulled ashore in St. Augustine, Florida. And nearly 450 years later, Tripster has too set claim to the historically quaint coastal town with the launch of its newest destination.  The website features the unique attractions and accommodations that make St. Augustine a popular tourist destination.

As an online travel agency, Tripster provides show and attraction tickets, including The Fountain of Youth Archeology Park, Old Town Trolleys, Zorayda Castle, and Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Museum. Travel consumers can purchase tickets while also bundling them with area hotels.

“St Augustine is a beautiful city unlike any other,” said John Johnson, President of Tripster. “The climate is great and just about everything you can experience is unique,” he continued. “We are excited to add this to our family of destinations.” Tripster already operates in Orlando, Panama City Beach and Destin, so the launch of ReserveStAugustine.com marks Tripster’s fourth Florida destination.

Tripster’s reservation model allows consumers to plan and book area attractions, amusements, and live shows with accommodations, either a la carte or in money-saving vacation packages. Tripster offers secure and guaranteed bookings with direct-to-gate e-tickets and flexible reservation policies. In addition, consumers will find extra benefit beyond discounts with the ease and convenience of using one website for all of their vacation planning and by signing up for added savings for future travels across Tripster’s other destinations.

St. Augustine served as Florida’s capital when it was a territory, and much of that history is on full display through the architecture of the Bridge of Lions and the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument, the oldest masonry fort in the Americas. Visitors stroll down St. George Street, which features original storefronts and unique period-based shops, restaurants, pubs and the oldest wooden schoolhouse in the United States. Across Matanzas Bay, visitors can take in Anastasia State Park, which possesses four miles of pristine beachfront.

Tripster is an online travel agency focused on destination specific leisure travel. Based in Missouri, Tripster has offices in St. Louis and Branson, Missouri and has provided online travel services since 2001. Other Tripster destinations also include Branson; San Diego, Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, Tennessee; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; Williamsburg, Virginia; and the Hawaiian Islands.