UPDATE: TripAdvisor emails to say that as of 21 April 2010 a total of 11,934 properties have signed up to the Business Listings service. That’s 2.6% of the total in 3.5 months.
Guillaume Thevenot, hotel trade relations manager, EMEA, says: “Many of these are small properties which have already seen a significant increase in both traffic and bookings as a result and recognise Business Listings as a new and important marketing tool. We are extremely pleased with take up so far and expect many more hotels to sign up in the coming months.â€
Original post:
User review site TripAdvisor says it has 
sold its Business Listing service to 4,000 of the hotels on its website since launch.
Officials say the only up-to-date figures cover the period to the beginning of February 2010, four weeks after the service launched.
The 4,000 hotels represent around 0.8% of the 450,000 properties featured on the website.
It is unclear whether this is above or below expectations, and the figure may well have risen sharply since February.
However, critics of the scheme may take heart from there not being a widespread adoption of the scheme by hoteliers, at least in its early stages.
The service was unveiled to mixed reviews in October 2009 and launched officially on January 4 2010.
The scheme works by allowing property owners to add extra information such as web details and links to existing hotel pages.
Last week TripAdvisor found itself on the end of a lawsuit in France after a union representing hoteliers claimed the company and its parent Expedia were undertaking unfair practices with regards to listings and details of hotels on the site.
Earlier in the same week, TripAdvisor unveiled a similar service to Business Listings aimed at tourist organisations.
I would have to believe that almost 1% conversion in just 4 weeks is absolutely incredible, especially with how long hoteliers usually operate in a media buying cycle… while TripAdvisor needs no introduction, it would still take at least a couple of weeks to get a deal like this done with a hotelier.
Curious to see what the conversion stats look like after 3 months.