Matt Goldberg travel tips

What will the new Tripadvisor look like? CEO Matt Goldberg, on the job since July, laid out the vision and some of the early results as part of the company’s first quarter earnings announcement.

Further investments in Tripadvisor’s Viator tours and activities brand, as well as making Tripadvisor’s core hotel price-comparison feature more relevant to travelers will likely be key elements of the company’s turnaround strategy, executives hinted, although they plan on first laying out their complete vision to investors in 2023.

Tripadvisor is considering revamping its Tripadvisor Plus membership plan, turning it into a free service in its initial stages, and then figuring out a more meaningful path to monetize it at some point later.

It’s been eight years since Tripadvisor took over Viator. And while Tripadvisor at one point downplayed Viator as an acquired brand, Tripadvisor could now be changing tack with its current two-brand experiences strategy. 

Good morning from Skift. It’s Friday, May 5. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

Tripadvisor is currently attempting a turnaround under a new CEO hired in 2022, and one of the reasons it needs one is Google had used its market power to divert users to sponsored ads and take back the free traffic Tripadvisor benefited from.

This story began with a promotion featured in an email from my credit card company, Capital One, and it took me aback: “Save up to 30% off on your Instant Book hotel with Tripadvisor.”

Tripadvisor and its Viator tours and activities brand compete against amply funded and privately held GetYourGuide as the largest players in this sector. So it was intriguing when the Tripadvisor’s CEO said at a recent investor conference that his experiences business “is larger and faster growing.”

Viator continues to be the star performer for Tripadvisor, accounting for 44% of the company’s total revenue in the second quarter of this year. But its parent company is spending nearly as much money as it generates to elevate Viator’s positioning as an experiences platform.