TripAdvisor launches app providing local restaurant recommendations

The world's largest travel website has created a Facebook app that provides restaurant recommendations written and rated by locals and friends.

Called Local Picks, the new app ranks restaurants worldwide and gives more weight to reviews written by local residents who may be able to provide more perspective and context compared to tourists who parachute into a city for a week. The recommendations are based on the 60 million opinions collected on TripAdvisor.

The ‘Foodies' newsfeed shows users which restaurants their Facebook friends have tried, and their full reviews. Users can also follow the foodie recommendations outside their immediate network, such as those of well-known chefs.

Restaurants are ranked on a 1-5 scale and include pertinent info like address, hours of operation and menus.

The app covers 850,000 restaurants around the world, as visited by TripAdvisor's 50 million unique monthly visitors.

Another popular restaurant app is Ness, which provides restaurant recommendations according to people's personal tastes. After rating a minimum of 10 restaurants, the app claims to be able to tailor suggestions based on the user's preferences.