What Might Be Troubling TripAdvisor Currently?

+11.07%
Upside
13.86
Market
15.39
Trefis
TRIP: Tripadvisor logo
TRIP
Tripadvisor

TripAdvisor’s recent third quarter earnings showed that the company still has a long way to go before it starts showing signs of a  turnaround in its persistently weak performance. The primary reason for the same has been TripAdvisor’s biggest investment in the hotel booking segment, the Instant Booking platform. TripAdvisor’s hotel segment revenues contributes to around 80% of its overall revenues and hence with Instant Booking’s constant underperformance, the overall performance of the company seems to be significantly dampened.

User Reluctance?

It seems that most users are still comfortable with using TripAdvisor solely as a metasearch engine where they compare hotel prices before going on to a different OTA or hotel website to complete their bookings. TripAdvisor’s ambitions towards transforming itself from a metasearch engine to a full service OTA seem to not have resonated with its users, so far. This is particularly strange if we consider that eight out of the top ten major hotel groups in the world has joined the Instant Booking platform and so has the largest global online accommodation provider, Priceline’s booking.com. Despite the confidence of the hotel suppliers, it seems hotel bookers are still not comfortable in completing their bookings via TripAdvisor.

Relevant Articles
  1. Why Has Tripadvisor Stock Slumped 35% This Year?
  2. Gaining 20% This Year, Will Tripadvisor Stock Rally Further After Q1 Results?
  3. Up 26% Already This Year, What Is Next For Tripadvisor Stock?
  4. Up 21% Since 2023, How Will Tripadvisor Stock Trend Post Q4 Results?
  5. Down 18% This Year, How Will Tripadvisor Stock Trend Following Q3 Results?
  6. What’s Next For Tripadvisor Stock?

What Next?

In the third quarter, though, Instant Booking met with some success in the U.S. with its click-based and transaction revenue and its revenues per hotel shopper; however, outside the U.S. the revenues per hotel shopper remained significantly dampened. Overall, the revenue per hotel shopper, an important parameter to track growth, stood at $0.45 reflecting a 12% y-o-y decline.

In conclusion, TripAdvisor’s fourth quarter doesn’t look too hopeful going by the past trends. If the company is not able to make a turnaround even in the next year, then there might be serious questions whether TripAdvisor can continue on its own or could become an acquisition target for a larger OTA.

Have more questions about TripAdvisor? See the links below.

Notes:

1) The purpose of these analyses is to help readers focus on a few important things. We hope such lean communication sparks thinking, and encourages readers to comment and ask questions on the comment section, or email content@trefis.com
2) Figures mentioned are approximate values to help our readers remember the key concepts more intuitively. For precise figures, please refer to our complete analysis for TripAdvisor

See More at Trefis | View Interactive Institutional Research (Powered by Trefis)

Get Trefis Technology