Recently I was tasked with integrating TripAdvisor reviews into UberVida’s testimonial section. The idea was simple enough but the task itself was a bit more complicated than I original thought. TripAdvisor offers some widgets to add reviews to your site, but lets be honest they suck when it comes to styling or customization.
[su_highlight]*There is now a complete plugin available based off of this article, you can download it and read how to use it here.[/su_highlight]
[su_highlight]TripAdvisor recently changed their terms of service along with that they blocked all access to your TripAdvisor RSS feed. I am working on a update that I hope to have ready shortly, you can sign up to receive an email when it is ready, sign up here. [/su_highlight]
What I had proposed to the client looked like this:
So obviously none of the widgets that TripAdvisor provided would do the job. This lead me to research if there was a WordPress plugin that would do the job, and there was! Tripadvisor Shortcode, but unfortunately it was pretty much on par with TripAdvisor’s widgets, but it did lead me to believe that TripAdvisor might have a RSS feed available for the reviews and if they did that was something that I could style and integrate into the site. After some time on google I was able to fine this great article on how to monitor your TripAdvisor reviews using a RSS feed.
TripAdviors RSS Feed:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Feeds-[su_highlight background=”#fffb99″]d3332323[/su_highlight]-treviews.xml
TripAdviors page:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g147257-[su_highlight background=”#fffb99″]d3332323[/su_highlight]-Reviews-UberVida-Hamilton_Pembroke_Parish_Bermuda.html
RSS Feed To Posts
As you can see the main part that we needed was the id [su_highlight background=”#fffb99″]d3332323[/su_highlight]. This is the part that you will have to change out to access you RSS feed. Now that I had the feed I was able to use one of my favorite plugins, FeedWordPress.
Using FeedWordPress
- Once you have FeedWordPress installed you will want to go to Syndication
- New Source
- Enter your RSS feed URL and click Add.
- Your RSS feed will then be add to Posts or a custom post type if you have created one. This can be set in Syndication > Posts & Links > (bottom of the page) bottom of the page Custom Post Types.
- If your RSS feed is not showing in your chosen post section go to Syndication > Syndicated sites > and click Update Now
Use Your Posts/RSS Feed
Now that you have your RSS feed in a post or custom post type you will be able to use it anywhere on your site. I added it to UberVida’s home page in a Carousel using this query:
<php $query = new WP_Query( array( 'post_type' =--> 'Testimonial', 'posts_per_page' => 5,) );
if ( $query->have_posts() ) : ?>
<php $c = 0; while ( $query--->have_posts() ) : $query->the_post();
$c++;
if( $c == 1 ){ ?>
This allowed me to pull the first five testimonials from my custom posts into a loop. After some styling it ended up looking like this:
Love it, how do i get it to work on html? Please help me integrate this into my new website for a hotel http://www.andatelhotel.com/new 🙂
Hi Robert,
I’ve been working on a simpler way to do this using wordpress’s fetch_feed function, to import the TripAdvisor feed into a slider, but this would only work on WordPress. Do a search for a html RSS feed reader, all you’ll need to do is integrate it into your slider. By the way your site looks great, shame it’s not a WordPress theme 😉
hi Gregory,
We’ve been using this solution to monitor our TripAdvisor feed but it no longer works – do you know if this id due to a change at TripAdvisor and if so if there is a work around?
Hi Jamie,
TripAdvisor recently changed their terms of service along with that they blocked all access to your TripAdvisor RSS feed. I am working on a update that I hope to have ready shortly, you can sign up to receive an email when it is ready, sign up here
Any word on when this update will be completed?
Hi Alex,
Yes it’s done, but it still needs some fine tuning, unfortunately I have to put my paying clients ahead of my free plugins, but if you sign up you can be one of the first to use the new plugin. Also, it will not be based off of the RSS feed anymore as TripAdvisor no longer provides access to them.
Hello, I’ve been trying to fix the same problem with the widget, suddenly we weren’t able to see the reviews. We are a spanish school at the beach, so a lot of tourists come here. He had the reviews widget working but now they’re all gone. What do you know about it?
Thanks!
Hi Jose,
TripAdvisor stopped providing the RSS feed to everyone. I have a fix that I hope to have ready by Friday. You can sign up to the mailing list to be notified when it’s available.
-Pura Vida
Got my own way of displaying review on my wordpress site.
download simple_html_dom here http://simplehtmldom.sourceforge.net/
find('div.reviewSelector ') as $review){
$quote = $review->find('div.quote', 0)->plaintext;
$entry = $review->find('div.entry p', 0)->plaintext;
echo ''.$quote.'';
echo ''.$entry.'';
}
I like it. Nice and simple.
find('div.reviewSelector ') as $review){
$quote = $review->find('div.quote', 0)->plaintext;
$entry = $review->find('div.entry p', 0)->plaintext;
echo ''.$quote.'';
echo ''.$entry.'';
}
Just want to find out if there is now a fix for the tripadvisor review display on wordpress.
Hi Patson,
Yes there is a fix for it. The next version will be completely independent, but this means it requires more testing to work out all of the bugs. Well right now there’s just one bug, but I want it to work correctly before releasing it. If you sign up I’ll notify you when I release it: http://gregorypearcey.com/sign/