Google Changes Accelerate Tripadvisor Revenue Decline

07.08.2024 - 07:22 / skift.com / Justin Dawes / Matthew Goldberg / Brian Fitzgerald

Revenue for Tripadvisor’s flagship brand and largest business is declining at an increasingly fast rate. 

The company said Tuesday that Brand Tripadvisor, mostly its legacy hotel metasearch product, saw a 10% year-over-year decline in revenue in the second quarter to $250 million. 

The decline in the first quarter was 2%. 

Executives attributed the decline primarily to ongoing pressure on the metasearch businesses, paired with recent changes in Google’s travel search results pages.

Michael Noonan, chief financial officer for Tripadvisor, said earlier this year that the changes with Google were expected to negatively impact revenue for the company. Tripadvisor didn’t detail exactly what about the changes dented Tripadvisor’s performance.

Wells Fargo Managing Director Brian Fitzgerald told Skift in April that metasearch is less lucrative than during Tripadvisor’s heyday because so many companies have poured money into brand advertising to promote more direct traffic. 

“Our financial performance continues to reflect the transition from our historical reliance on legacy offerings such as hotel meta, which has experienced ongoing pressure over time to a more diverse and sustainable model. This challenge is well known and the strategy we launched last year addresses it head on,” said Matthew Goldberg, president and CEO of Tripadvisor, during the call.

While Brand Tripadvisor saw a decline, Tripadvisor’s other two businesses are growing. 

Viator, the online travel agency for tours and activities, saw a 13% year-over-year increase in revenue last quarter to $244 million. And The Fork, the online restaurant reservation platform, saw an 11% year-over-year increase to $42 million. 

The company is also seeing early positive signs with its AI-powered trip planner. 

Travelers who have used the tool have generated an average of 15 times more revenue than TripAdvisor’s platform-wide average, Goldberg said.

“It’s still early, but the product enhancements we’re rolling out are driving meaningfully higher monetization among our highest engaged members and app users,” Goldberg said during the call. 

“This higher monetization has been consistent as we’ve begun to scale our efforts, driven primarily by experiences bookings today, but with real upside as we introduce more in-app booking across other categories in the future,” he said. “The formula is simple. When we keep travelers engaged on our platform, we have more opportunities to monetize — not just through clicks, but through higher value transactions as well.”

Tripadvisor last quarter added 20 new languages to the tool and 30 new regions. 

The company has updated its app recently, including a new home screen to encourage trip planning and emphasize the experiences