TripAdvisor’s Strong Performance Is Expected To Continue In Q4 2015 With The Biggest Driver Being Instant Booking

TripAdvisor (NASDAQ:TRIP) is slated to release its Q4 2015 earnings results on February 11th. The company’s brilliant growth story in the first three quarters of 2015 is expected to continue in the fourth quarter as well. For the first nine months of 2015, the company’s revenues rose by 23% year-on-year to $1.2 billion. Along with Instant Booking’s huge success, especially since Priceline‘s Booking.com’s participation, TripAdvisor’s other segments also witnessed a steady performance, so far. In line with 2014, the company continued acquiring a host of restaurant booking websites in 2015, too. Viator, its tours and entertainment platform, also witnessed huge growth.

We will update our price estimate of $80 for TripAdvisor post the fourth quarter earnings release.

See Our Complete Analysis for TripAdvisor Here

It’s A Happy Time For Instant Booking

TripAdvisor’s Instant Booking had been making waves especially since Priceline’s Booking.com joined the platform on conditions of some exclusivity. Priceline plans on launching its other websites on Instant Booking as well, in case the returns from this platform prove lucrative. The total number of hotel properties on TripAdvisor after the Booking.com integration is expected to be around 436,000. ^[1] Additionally, Booking.com has agreed to provide TripAdvisor with some enhanced features like content in non-English languages, competitive rates, and the option for users to book hotels through local currency or credit cards.

A recent report by the investment banking and asset management firm, Piper Jaffray, showed that in the fourth quarter of 2015, the number of leading global hotels that joined TripAdvisor’s Instant Booking platform increased by 20% shortly post its deal with Priceline. ^[2]

In January, TripAdvisor released a Windows 10 application across desktop and mobile devices. Along with TripAdvisor’s exhaustive list of booking tools, including Instant Booking, the application includes over 290 million user reviews on hotels, restaurants, and tourist attractions, accompanied by over 46 million traveler photos. One of the attractive features available through the application is the Near Me Now tool that helps travelers reach attractions located near them with the help of their phone’s GPS. (Read press release.)

TripAdvisor’s TheFork Is Expanding Rapidly

On the back of its acquisitions, TripAdvisor’s restaurant reservation platform, TheFork, now spreads across 12 countries and boasts of websites such as LaFourchette, the leading online restaurant reservation website in France and Spain, mytable and restopolis in Italy, Iens in The Netherlands, Best Tables in Portugal, and Australia’s largest restaurant booking website, Dimmi. TheFork currently assists in reservations in over 28,000 restaurants. ^[3]

Viator’s Successful Tourism Ventures

In February 2015, TripAdvisor launched Marketplace with the help of its tourism-based website, Viator. Marketplace has helped in the expansion of TripAdvisor’s entertainment platform by allowing suppliers to list their entertainment related businesses on TripAdvisor, and also by enhancing the user’s booking experience. Consequently, in Q2 2015,  Viator’s listing of attractions almost doubled versus the number in 2014.

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1. Booking.com Finally Joins Major Hotel Chains in Book on TripAdvisor, Skift, October 14, 2015 [↩]
2. TripAdvisor booking inventory up over 20% after Priceline deal, Travel Weekly, Jan 24, 2016 [↩]
3. TripAdvisor’s Q2 2015 earnings Call Transcript, Seeking Alpha, July 23, 2015 [↩]