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Accommodation choices are being narrowed down with guest photos uploaded on Instagram.

Curated accommodations site Top10 today launched a new online experience that includes hotel images from Instagram users.

Curation has always been central to this startup’s business — one of 2014’s key travel trends. With the Instagram integration, Top10 moves this another step forward by pulling in user-generated content that provides travelers with a perspective on properties that complements professional images.

After travelers pick a destination and travel dates, they can also choose to filter for locale, price, and style. A list of ten hotels are presented with thumbnails, hotel name, price, and source. Users can then choose to see professional images or ones from Instagram.

“Other than matching photos to hotels programmatically, Top10 does not curate any photos or data, and photos are shown in the order they appear in the Instagram API feed, with the most recent appearing first. This means the content is always changing, and reflects what users are photographing at each hotel – good or bad,” said Tom Leathes, co-founder and CEO of Top10.

Top10 is the first booking site to integrate Instagram photos — others, like TripAdvisor, allow users to upload their own images. On the property side, Starwood Hotels and Resorts integrated Instagram photos to its online booking experience through a “Guest Gallery” in 2013, and was the first travel brand to advertise on Instagram earlier this year.

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Tags: hotels, instagram, online, social media

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