The Travel Channel invests $7.5 Million in Oyster.com

The Travel Channel has invested $7.5 million in Oyster.com, a start-up that employs professionals to review hotels and takes a cut of all the room reservations it helps to make. It will promote Oyster on television and online, and may incorporate the Web site’s reviewers into future programs.

The Travel Channel may inspire a viewer to book a weekend on Martha’s Vineyard or a getaway to Monaco. But when that trip is taken, the transaction fees wind up in some other pocket.

Now the channel, owned by Scripps Networks, is taking its first step toward changing that, “closing that last mile,” in the words of Laureen Ong, its president.

In a deal to be announced on Monday, the Travel Channel has invested $7.5 million in Oyster.com, a start-up that employs professionals to review hotels and takes a cut of all the room reservations it helps to make. It will promote Oyster on television and online, and may incorporate the Web site’s reviewers into future programs.

“If we’re going to inspire you, by all means you should be able to get it all done on our site. That’s on our horizon,” Ms. Ong said in an interview last week.


BY ANKIT KUMAR
PGDM -2sem