**The problem it solves** Travellers comparing hotel rates across dozens of booking sites face fragmented searches and inconsistent pricing, while hotels and OTAs need a scalable channel to reach price-conscious bookers at the moment of intent. **What Trivago does** Trivago is a global hotel and accommodation metasearch engine, founded in 2005 in Düsseldorf, Germany, where it remains headquartered, with over 650 employees. **How it works** Trivago aggregates room rates from OTAs, hotel direct channels, and other booking sites into a single comparison view for each property. Advertisers, primarily OTAs, bid on placement using a cost-per-click or cost-per-acquisition model, and Trivago earns a referral fee when a user clicks through or completes a booking on the advertiser's site; the platform does not take bookings directly. AI-driven improvements to search relevance and personalization are an ongoing focus, alongside a growing emphasis on driving direct hotel bookings. **Who it's for** Leisure and business travellers comparing accommodation prices across channels, and OTAs and hotel chains that want high-intent referral traffic at the top of the booking funnel.
Listed on STR Market Map, the short-term-rental software marketplace.