I was asked if I’d like to be one of the travel bloggers to partner with Gekko.com, which provides personalised hotel and restaurant recommendations. The partnership entails sharing hotel and restaurant reviews published on the Europe a la Carte Blog with Gekko. I agreed to the partnership as I see the future for independent travel blogs, like Europe a la Carte, as working in collaboration with other travel content sites, as long as it is mutually beneficial to both parties. Geeko will have access to more hotel and restaurant reviews and Europe a la Carte will gain more exposure. At present another couple of travel blogs, LondonEater and London Appetizer will also be partnering with Gekko.

I first read about Gekko in a Travel Guardian article about new travel sites in which Gekko was described as using an alogrithm similar to that used in online dating sites to find the perfect hotel or restaurant match for users.

On joining Gekko you complete a nine stage hotel preference rating and your profile preferences are based on the results. When you carry out a hotel or restaurant search your own profile and preferecne of members with similar profiles to your own creates a list where establishments are given a percentage score with the highest scores being the best matches for you.