Hotel.jp has signed partnership agreements with Agoda.com, Hotels.com, Booking.com and Expedia Japan, which will give its users access to Japanese content on four of the world’s largest hotel booking sites.

It’s also the first step towards the hotel and travel accommodation review website run by Venture Republic offering international content to its users by next year.

The partnerships deal makes Hotel.jp the first Japanese website to allow users to compare domestic hotel prices across several world-class, foreign-owned booking sites and a wide variety of domestic sites.

Effective November 19, 2012, users of Hotel.jp will be able to search and compare domestic hotel deals offered not only through Japanese booking sites, but also through major foreign-owned booking sites as well. In October 2012, 29.4% of traffic on Hotel.jp came from mobile, an indication of the rapid growth in this channel in Japan.

Hotel.jp is a hotel and travel accommodation review website centered on user-generated pictures and videos. The site contains information on over 27,000 hotels across Japan, and users can search through videos and pictures of rooms, views, meals, facilities, and lobbies, as well as through written reviews, all of which have been uploaded by other users. The website’s meta search function displays results from a total of 11 sites, including JTB, Hankyu Travel, Jalan, Rakuten Travel, and Ikyu.com.

The partnerships will allow Hotel.jp to display meta search results of the hottest domestic hotel deals and accommodation plans from not only the 11 current domestic partner sites, but also through the four new partner sites.

Each booking site that gains users through the new Hotel.jp meta search will pay a commission fee to Hotel.jp that corresponds to the exact increase in users.

CEO of Venture Republic, Kei Shibata, said this move was the first step towards Hotel.jp adding international content possibly by the second quarter of 2013, which would allow its users to book hotels offshore. Said Shibata, “Definitely not all Japanese customers feel comfortable with booking foreign hotels online and packages are still most popular but we believe the number of bookings has been gradually increasing over time.”