Fix TripAdvisor Connector & Implement BYOK Scraping Model

1. Technical Issue

The current TripAdvisor integration is failing.

• Observed Behavior: When synchronizing a TripAdvisor profile, the import is either partial (very few reviews) or completely non-existent.

• Direct Consequence: The "Review Aggregation" feature is effectively broken for this source.

• Collateral Damage: Analytics and dashboards are corrupted. The "Reviews by Platform" distribution displays false data, misleading the end-user.

2. Business Justification

Leaving this issue unresolved renders the solution unviable for any client in the Hospitality or F&B sectors. Downplaying TripAdvisor's relevance is a strategic error.

Key Metrics:

• Volume: TripAdvisor has surpassed 1 billion reviews and opinions. It is the global reference for reputation history.

• Traffic: The platform attracts approximately 460 million unique monthly visitors.

• Trust: In the HORECA sector, TripAdvisor is often the primary or secondary source for purchase decisions, alongside Google.

• Churn Risk: Delivering a "Reputation Management" tool that fails to monitor a pillar of the industry destroys trust. If a client sees 0 reviews on our dashboard but has 500 online, they will question the reliability of all our data.

3. Proposed Solution & Architecture Change

We need a stable, long-term fix. Given that the official API is restrictive and building internal scrapers is maintenance-heavy, I propose the following:

1. Immediate Fix: Investigate the current connector failure.

2. BYOK (Bring Your Own Key) Implementation: Integrate a third-party scraping service (e.g., Apify, Bright Data, or similar) using a Bring Your Own Key model.

   • Logic: Instead of EMR absorbing the scraping costs and fighting anti-bot measures globally, allow us (the agency/user) to input our own API Key from the scraping provider.

   • Benefit: This offloads the proxy/infrastructure cost to the user, ensures dedicated resources, and guarantees higher stability for critical accounts without burdening EMR's core infrastructure costs.