Introducing Smart Search

The way travelers search for lodging has changed. They're not typing hotel names anymore — they're describing an experience. Something with a pool. Near downtown. Pet friendly. Good reviews.

Legacy search wasn't built for that. It matched names, and only names, and only when you spelled them close enough. It was a relic of a different era of travel booking, and we've replaced it.

Smart Search is rolling out now

What Changed

The old search bar is gone. In its place is an AI-powered search experience that understands natural language, interprets traveler intent, and returns results that actually match what someone is looking for.

Search for "hotel with a pool near Main Street" and you'll get exactly that — along with a smart summary explaining what was found and why it's relevant, with direct links to each property.

It indexes by name, location, price, review ratings, and property characteristics. It surfaces quick-tap tips for the most popular searches. And as travelers scroll, it transitions into Local Highlights — curated destination tags that let them explore the inventory by the things that actually matter to them: walkability, family-friendliness, sustainability.

This is a meaningfully better search experience. For travelers, it removes friction. For your destination, it puts the right properties in front of the right people.

What's Coming Next

Smart Search is just getting started.

We're building out a new layer of search analytics that will give you unprecedented visibility into what your travelers are actually looking for. Search volume, engagement patterns, the queries that drive the most exploration — it's all coming, and it's coming soon.

The era of guessing what travelers want is ending. The data to know is almost here.

Smart Search is available now on all Ripe-powered platforms.

Just because your destination is English-speaking doesn't mean your visitors are. Available now on all accounts by default is multilingual support. This front-end live translation supports the most common languages from around the world.

• Manually toggled by the user, not by IP address.
• Changing the language will change the URL, allowing you to share a link with a default language already selected.
• At this point, all confirmation emails will continue to be sent in English.
• Pricing is shown in U.S. dollars unless toggled to Canadian dollars within the Ripe CRS for all users

Capturing high-intent demand at the source is the most effective way to keep tourism value within your local economy. While the Event Lodging Marketplace has always been the engine for this growth, we have launched a new tool to make the onboarding process even simpler for you and your event partners.

See a real example here

We are excited to announce the launch of a dedicated, public-facing Event Lodging Marketplace landing page for every client. This turnkey solution is designed to help event organizers understand the benefits of the platform and initiate the setup process with a single click.

What is the Event Lodging Marketplace?

The Event Lodging Marketplace provides event organizers with a hyper-localized micro-instance of the ITA Platform. It offers attendees a seamless, experience-led booking journey while allowing event producers to own their impact and, in many cases, earn commissions on bookings to create an added revenue stream.

A Simple Path to Implementation

You no longer need to manage the technical back-and-forth to get an event started. We have simplified the workflow into three steps:

• Identify: Pinpoint an event in your destination that drives overnight stays.
• Share: Send the organizer the link to your new landing page at subdomain.domain.com/event-lodging-marketplace. For example: https://lodging.stayparkcity.com/event-lodging-marketplace
• Connect: Once the organizer submits the short form on that page, the Ripe team takes over.

Our team works directly with the event organizer to customize, localize, and implement their marketplace. This allows your organization to scale your event ecosystem without adding to your daily administrative workload.

Learn More

For a deeper dive into the features and strategy behind these marketplaces, please visit our detailed Product Guide.

As always, we are here to help you succeed. If you have questions about your specific URL or how to best present this to your partners, please reach out to your Ripe representative.

Available now · All accounts

You can now require a passcode to access your event portal — keeping negotiated rates and private pricing visible only to the guests you invite.

When enabled, anyone who lands on your event URL (or navigates directly to a property page) will be prompted to enter the passcode before they can browse or book. Set it once in Microsite settings, share it with your attendees, and your private rates stay private.

To turn it on: Go to your event page settings, find Passcode Options, enter and confirm your passcode, and save.

Read the full setup guide ->

We're moving cancellation and hotel policies from a checkbox link to being displayed directly on the checkout page – making them more visible and transparent before booking.

Previous State:

• Policies were hidden behind a checkbox link that users must click to view
• Users must check the box to proceed with checkout

New Approach:

• Policies will be pulled out and shown directly on screen during checkout
• Same content (passed from Sabre, Streamline...connection source), just more prominent
• Follows industry standard used by other platforms and traveler expectations.

Why We Did This: This change reduces friction and frustration on both sides:

• Travelers see policies upfront before booking, reducing surprises and complaints later
• Suppliers face fewer disputes from guests who claim they "didn't know" about cancellation terms
• Clear visibility = fewer frustrated calls to your suppliers about policies that were already in place

Bottom Line: This is a transparency improvement that protects both parties. When policies are clear upfront, travelers make informed decisions and suppliers spend less time managing avoidable conflicts over terms that were always there – just harder to find.

As the leading In-market Travel Agency (ITA) in North America, Ripe is dedicated to empowering the people and experiences that drive destination demand. To support our mission of platform readiness and providing industry-leading tools for our partners, we are excited to announce our new Group Housing Support feature.

This update is designed to help you capture and convert large-scale group bookings more effectively, ensuring no lead is left behind.

Simplified Booking for Large Groups

Planning travel for groups of 9 or more rooms requires specialized attention and also will often qualify for negotiated rates. With this update, your Ripe search widget now includes a dedicated "Need to book 9+ rooms?" prompt within the search widget.

When enabled, a new CTA appears in all search widgets. When clicked a new tab is opened for the target link. Users are seamlessly guided to a specialized group housing service, ensuring they receive the high-touch support needed for large-scale coordination. When using Ripe's service there is no additional cost to the account holder or affiliates, but a small commission is taken from each reservation.

Key Benefits for Your Destination

Retain Intent: Capture high-volume demand directly from your search widget. Instead of travelers leaving your site to find group rates elsewhere, you keep them within your digital ecosystem.

Support Local Events: Ensure that large-scale conferences, sports tournaments, and weddings are directed to the correct inventory and negotiated blocks.

Unified Experience: The group housing link remains consistent across your main website and all event-driven affiliate widgets, ensuring a professional, cohesive brand experience for every visitor.

You're In Control: Flexibility is core to the Ripe platform. You can choose to include the Ripe-supplied Group Housing service (via our partnership with Hotel Planner) or link directly to a third-party service you already contract with or operate.

Ready to get started? Contact your Ripe Client Success Manager today, or jump in yourself to enable your group housing link and start scaling your event production.

We’ve updated the Exclusive Offer feature to now appear as a Local Gift — a clearer, more compelling reason for travelers to book through your destination. This update helps better merchandise the value of these perks while keeping the booking experience intuitive and user-friendly.

What’s new:

• The term “Exclusive Offer” is now “Local Gift”, reinforcing its connection to the destination and local businesses
• Redesigned selection modal using radio buttons instead of dropdowns for a smoother user flow
• A first-time tooltip educates travelers without repeating annoyingly on every visit
• On the property detail page there is more information presented, pulling from the existing content fields like descriptions and how to redeem.
• On the checkout page, there is improved messaging if they still haven't chosen an offer. Once they do, there is more messaging around the delivery details.

There’s no change to how value adds function — just a more polished and traveler-focused presentation to drive engagement and conversion.

We’ve updated the desktop Search Results Page (SRP) map logic to improve clarity and traveler experience across all client and affiliate sites.

What’s changed: The SRP map will now only display available and referral properties. Based on client and user feedback, we’ve removed sold-out properties from the map to streamline the booking experience and focus attention on bookable options.

What stays the same: Sold-out properties will continue to appear in the SRP grid, now positioned toward the bottom of the list to reduce distraction while maintaining visibility for travelers who want a complete view of the market.

This update is now live and applies to all partners. It’s part of our ongoing commitment to create intuitive, high-performing experiences that drive production and support local tourism ecosystems.

We’ve introduced the Reservations API Endpoint, providing clients with real-time access to their booking data.

This new endpoint allows authorized systems—such as CRMs, data warehouses, and visualization tools—to securely retrieve reservation-level details including guest, property, and financial information. It enables clients to monitor performance, build live dashboards, automate reporting, and demonstrate measurable ROI.

Highlights:

• Real-time reservation data for client and authorized platform use
• Transaction value, and stay detail included in the response
• Supports pagination and filtering by date, status, and property
• Individual payment & credit card information is never returned or available via the API
• JSON format compatible with CRM and BI tools such as Tempest, Metabase, or Tableau

For implementation details, visit the Reservations Endpoint Documentation.

The Property Preview Endpoint is now generally available to support high-performance use cases such as AI chatbots, LLM-powered experiences, and real-time property tiles on client websites.

This lightweight endpoint delivers fast, structured property data—ideal for applications that require quick, contextual responses without calling the full property object.

What’s New:

• Standardized output for smooth LLM and chatbot consumption
• Includes core metadata: name, location, imagery, summary, and rate info
• Optimized to load live availability and rates into property cards on affiliate and event pages
• Improved field consistency for easier integration with generative AI tools

Ideal Use Cases:

• Enabling conversational AI agents to answer “Where should I stay?” with real property options
• Powering real-time property tiles on event pages and DMO sites, showing rate and availability
• Returning preview cards in chat-based or voice-based search interfaces
• Fetching property metadata for frontend builders or CMS environments

Why It Matters: Whether you're integrating Ripe into a marketing site, travel chatbot, or your own in-destination booking tools, this endpoint ensures the most relevant lodging results are surfaced quickly and accurately—with just the right level of detail.

For implementation details, field reference, and example calls, visit the Property Preview Endpoint Documentation.