TripAdvisor Begins Using Its Own Restaurant Reservations Tool In Challenge to OpenTable and Yelp

TripAdvisor completed its previously announced acquisition of lafourchette, and began giving users the option to reserve tables from TripAdvisor’s city-information pages at some 12,000 restaurants across Europe.

TripAdvisor has long hosted abundant reviews about restaurants around the world, but hasn’t done much to monetize it. With TripAdvisor’s push to give users more options about tours and activities when they are traveling, restaurant reservations represents a deepening of these options for both locals and travelers alike.

The acquisition of lafourchette is TripAdvisor’s first in the restaurant industry.

lafourchette, based in France, is particularly strong in Switzerland, France and Spain. TripAdvisor has begun integrating lafourchette’s restaurant reservation platform so today users can read TripAdvisor ratings and user reviews about Le Cinq restaurant in Paris, for example, and can click on “find a table” to make a reservation.

TripAdvisor previously partnered with OpenTable for some of these services.

TripAdvisor earlier this month announced its intent to acquire lafourchette. Venture Beat reported that the acquisition price tag was $140 million.