Leading travel advice and feedback website operator has announced the acquisition of vacation rental specialist Holiday Lettings.

A subsidiary of online global travel Expedia, TripAdvisor is now in charge of what is acknowledged as the largest independent UK vacation rental website. TripAdvisor takes over Holiday Lettings from the British-based property website operator Rightmove, which sold its majority interest in the website for an undisclosed sum.

Rightmove had originally acquired a stake of 66.67 per cent in Holiday Lettings back in March 2007, though it recently stated in its half yearly report that it would classify the site as a discontinued operation, following the disposition of gross assets totalling £1 million.

40,000 vacation rental properties are currently advertised by Holiday Lettings on behalf of property managers, letting agents and private owners. The inventory stretches across 116 countries, ranging from apartments and villas to windmills and farmhouses, houseboats to yurts. 25 million visitors access the site each year according to the official press release.

TripAdvisor launched vacation rentals in 2009, following the acquisition in 2008 of the US-based Flipkey website. The takeover signals that the group is ramping up its competition with vacation rental leader HomeAway. Holidaylettings.co.uk will continue as an independent website.

TripAdvisor Media Group has now grown to encompass 17 different travel brands with the latest acquisition, collectively attracting around 46 million unique global visitors every month.