- Mars Petcare and Tripadvisor are partnering to make travel more pet-friendly, via a digital hub that will connect pet parents to destinations and support businesses that accommodate them.
- The new Pet Travel Hub will be co-branded under Mars’s Cesar Canine Cuisine brand and Tripadvisor. It is designed to further Mars Petcare’s mission of creating “A Better World for Pets” and Cesar Canine’s commitment to make the world more dog-friendly.
- The hub, available through Tripadvisor’s mobile app, will include city guides with pet-friendly travel trips and attractions and an AI-powered trip builder for consumers to create pet-friendly personalized itineraries guided by traveler tips and reviews.
Pets are part of the family, and families want to travel together. “Pet Travel” is searched on Google more than 19 million times annually, according to research from Infogroup. According to that same research, 33% of pet parents have altered their travel plans because of their difficulty traveling with their pets. In addition, of the 746,000 U.S. restaurants on Tripadvisor, only 5,000 – fewer than 1% – are listed as “pet-friendly.”
“At Mars, we’re dedicated to becoming the most digitally enabled, pet parent-centric organization, which means collaborating with innovators like Tripadvisor to transform the pet parent experience,” said Natalia Ball, global chief growth officer of Mars Pet Nutrition, in a statement. “This partnership cements our commitment to supporting pet parent communities, using our unmatched expertise, knowledge and relationship with over 400 million pets and their pet parents who purchase our products every year.”
In addition to the consumer-facing content, the partnership will include a hub for businesses to help them discover the benefits of welcoming pets, including tips on how to be identified as pet-friendly on Tripadvisor, how to accommodate pets, and how to ensure consumers know their animal companions are welcome at the establishments.
