ReviewPro, the Barcelona-based hotel reputation management and social media monitoring company, is expanding to Asia and will open an office in the region by the third quarter.

Europe has been its focus since its establishment in early 2008. CEO RJ Friedlander said, “The region is growing and the opportunities are huge in Asia. We started with a clear aspiration to be the world leader in this field.”

Asia now accounts for 10% of its business and he expected that in five years time, it would grow to a third.

He said the diversity of Europe with its multiple languages and cultures would help ReviewPro ease into a region known for its nuances. “We will of course adapt and evolve our product in line with customer needs.”

He said, “We are not going to come in and think we know everything. What we are good at is product and technology, who we need to listen to and implementing what customers want. That mindset will do well in Asia, I believe.”

Of the 60 people on its team, 35 are in product and technology. “That’s a high percentage and that’s our difference – innovation.”

It won the Best Emerging Technology Innovation Award at the 2011 PhoCusWright Conference.

ReviewPro indexes over 100 million guest hotel reviews in 14 languages across nearly 80 of the most relevant Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) and customer review websites.

Friedlander said the review space had become more crowded and fragmented. “Ten years ago, there was only one site, TripAdvisor, and then OTAs got into it and that was the tipping point – when they realized they needed that SEO gold and new content.”

Asked where he saw reviews going with the development of social graphs and if the recommendations of friends would have stronger weightage than those of strangers, he said that personally, “I prefer hotels that have 2,000 recommendations than those recommended by my friends. I don’t have an inherent distrust in people I don’t know.”