TripAdvisor

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TripAdvisor
Type Public
Traded as NASDAQ: TRIP
S&P 500 Component
Industry Travel services
Founded February 2000
Founder(s) Stephen Kaufer
Headquarters Newton, Massachusetts, United States
Area served America, Africa, Middle East, Europe, Asia Pacific
Key people Stephen Kaufer, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer
Products Hotel and flights booking, Vacation rentals, Restaurant finding, Travel guides
Revenue $762 million in 2012[1]
Employees 1,939 people as of Oct. 2013 Q3 Report
Website www.tripadvisor.com
References: more than 50m monthly UV, 20m members and over 50m reviews

TripAdvisor.com is a travel website providing directory information and reviews of travel-related content. It also includes interactive travel forums.

TripAdvisor was an early adopter of user-generated content. The website services are free to users, who provide most of the content, and the website is supported by an advertising business model.[2]

Description

TripAdvisor Media Group operates seventeen travel brands including TripAdvisor, Airfarewatchdog, BookingBuddy, Cruise Critic, Family Vacation Critic, FlipKey, GateGuru,[3] Holiday Lettings, Holiday Watchdog, Independent Traveler, OneTime, SeatGuru, SmarterTravel, Tingo, Jetsetter, Travel Library, TravelPod, VirtualTourist and Kuxun.cn. TripAdvisor operates websites internationally, including in the U.S., the U.K., France, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Spain, India, Japan, Portugal, Brazil, Sweden, The Netherlands, Canada, Denmark, Turkey, Mexico, Austria, Norway, Poland, Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Russia, Greece, Indonesia, and in China under the brand daodao.com and kuxun.cn. TripAdvisor is headquartered in Newton, Massachusetts.[1] According to its website,[4] TripAdvisor claims to be the most popular and largest travel community in the world, with more than 32 million members and over 100 million reviews and opinions of hotels, restaurants, attractions and other travel-related businesses.

History

TripAdvisor was founded in February 2000 by Langley Steinert, Stephen Kaufer and several others. Original financing was obtained from Flagship Ventures, the Bollard Group and private investors.[5] The company was purchased by InterActive Corporation in 2004. IAC spun off its travel group of businesses under the Expedia, Inc. name in August 2005.[6] In May 2007 TripAdvisor acquired Smarter Travel Media operator of SmarterTravel.com and BookingBuddy.com; SeatGuru.com; TravelPod.com; and Travel-Library.com.[7] Also in May 2007, TripAdvisor acquired The Independent Traveler, Inc., publisher of Cruise Critic.com and IndependentTraveler.com[8]

In February 2008, TripAdvisor acquired Holiday Watchdog, a user-generated travel site in the U.K.[9] In July 2008, TripAdvisor acquired Virtualtourist, a travel website with reportedly over 1 million registered members and OneTime.com, a travel comparison site.[10]

In July 2008, TripAdvisor acquired a majority stake in FlipKey.com, a vacation-rental website.[11] In October 2009, TripAdvisor purchased Kuxun.cn, China’s second-largest consumer travel site and hotel and flight search engine.[12]

In April 2009, TripAdvisor launched its official site in China daodao. Since then it has indexed more than 20,000 hotels and restaurants information and customer reviews, and made top lists, becoming one of the biggest travel websites as of now.[13]

In June 2010, TripAdvisor acquired the United Kingdom's largest independent vacation rental website, holidaylettings.co.uk.[citation needed] In September 2010, SmarterTravel, part of TripAdvisor Media Group, launched SniqueAway (now Jetsetter) the first members-only site where each travel deal is endorsed by the people.[citation needed]

In March 2011, TripAdvisor informed all registered TripAdvisor members that an unauthorized third party had stolen some of TripAdvisor's email list, and might use it to create spam messages. No passwords or other information was stolen. This happened shortly before many other companies reported similar thefts of the addresses on their email lists.[14][15]

In April 2011, it was announced that Expedia would split into two publicly traded companies by spinning off the TripAdvisor brand of travel sites. According to Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, the move, "allows the two businesses to be pure plays and to operate with the proper amount of focus to grow respectively."[16]

In July 2011, TripAdvisor announced its acquisition of Where I've Been, a Chicago based Travel Facebook app for an undisclosed sum.[17]

According to a July 2011 PhoCusWright survey of 3,641 respondents, solicited at random through a pop-up invitation link on TripAdvisor.com and commissioned by Trip Advisor, “98% of participants found that TripAdvisor’s hotel reviews … accurately reflect the experience.”[18]

In December 2011, TripAdvisor was spun off from Expedia in a public offering.[19]

TripAdvisor states it is the world’s largest social travel network with over 100 million travellers having used it.[20]

In April 2012, the company launched a connection to Facebook that lets users select reviews from people in their social graph.[21]

In October 2012, TripAdvisor announced its acquisition of Wanderfly, a NYC based travel inspiration website for an undisclosed sum.[22]

In June 2013, TripAdvisor announced its acquisition of GateGuru, a NYC based flight and airport information mobile app for an undisclosed sum.[23]

Criticism and legal actions

TripAdvisor has been criticized for allowing unsubstantiated anonymous reviews to be posted about any hotel, B&B, inn or restaurant.[24]

Around 30 hotels have been blacklisted by TripAdvisor for suspicious reviews, including a Cornwall hotel that bribed guests to leave positive reviews of the hotel.[25]

TripAdvisor has stated that reviews are not posted to the website instantly, but are subject to a verification process which considers the IP address and email address of the author, and tries to detect any suspicious patterns or obscene or abusive language.[26] The website also allows the community of users to report suspicious content, which is then assessed by a team of quality assurance specialists. TripAdvisor also alerts the owner or manager of a TripAdvisor-listed establishment whenever a review is posted on their listing.[27]

In September 2011, the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) launched a formal investigation into TripAdvisor after receiving complaints that its claims to provide trustworthy and honest reviews from travellers are false.[28] The ASA found that TripAdvisor 'should not claim or imply that all its reviews were from real travellers, or were honest, real or trusted',[29] and as a result of the investigation, TripAdvisor was ordered to remove the slogan "reviews you can trust" from its UK web site.[30] It changed its hotel review section slogan to 'reviews from our community.'

TripAdvisor stated that the branding change had been planned for some time and that changes began in June 2011, before the ASA investigation.[31][32] ASA commented that "it was concerned that consumers might be fooled by fraudulent posts since the entries could be made without any form of verification," but recognised that TripAdvisor used "advanced and highly effective fraud systems" in an attempt to identify and remove fake content.

In 2012, an action was brought in a Sheriff Court in Scotland, by a guesthouse owner who claimed damages for malicious statements. TripAdvisor asserted that the Scottish courts lacked jurisdiction.[33] The outcome of this case was called a "landmark victory", as the pursuer (plaintiff) secured two points of law in the UK:[34]

  • TripAdvisor conceded that it could be sued in the UK's jurisdictions (having previously claimed to be outside the remit of the Scottish legal system because it is based in Massachusetts);
  • TripAdvisor's terms of use constituted a contract, which was actionable/enforceable by the business being reviewed.

The case was found to involve issues relating to the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Act, 1977: these issues were referred to a higher court in Stornoway.

In 2012, TripAdvisor was fined $80,000 by the U.S. Department of Transportation for violating new fair trading regulations requiring taxes and fees to be shown for prices quoted for airfares.[35]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Annual Report". TripAdvisor LLC. Retrieved 2013-05-06. 
  2. ↑ "Fact sheet". TripAdvisor LLC. Retrieved 2009-12-01. 
  3. ↑
  4. ↑ http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/PressCenter-c4-Fact_Sheet.html retrieved 2012-07-28
  5. ↑ "IAC Acquires TripAdvisor, Inc.". Flagship Ventures. 2004-03-16. Retrieved 2009-07-15. 
  6. ↑ "IAC Completes Spin-Off of Expedia, Inc.". Expedia, Inc. 2005-08-09. Retrieved 2010-01-14. 
  7. ↑ "TripAdvisor acquires five travel communities". HotelMarketing.com. 2007-05-09. Retrieved 2009-07-15. 
  8. ↑ "TripAdvisor Acquires Cruise Critic, Leading Cruise Community". PR Wire. 2007-05-23. Retrieved 2009-07-116. 
  9. ↑ "TripAdvisor Acquires Holiday Watchdog". Reuters. 2008-02-14. Retrieved 2009-07-15. 
  10. ↑ "TripAdvisor Acquires VirtualTourist and OneTime". TripAdvisor LLC. 2008-07-01. Retrieved 2008-08-03. 
  11. ↑ "TripAdvisor Takes FlipKey Majority Stake". Xconomy. 2008-08-21. Retrieved 2009-07-16. 
  12. ↑ "TripAdvisor Expands to China with Kuxun". bnet. 2009-10-31. Retrieved 2009-12-01. 
  13. ↑ "about daodao.com". daodao.com. 2011-07-01. Retrieved 2011-11-22. 
  14. ↑ ((cite web|url=http://business.financialpost.com/2011/03/24/tripadvisor-hacked-member-emails-stolen/ |title=TripAdvisor hacked, member emails stolen |publisher=Financial Post|date=2011-03-24 |accessdate=2013-10-29))
  15. ↑ ((url=http://www.tripadvisor.ca/vpages/more_information.html))
  16. ↑ "Expedia plans to split into two companies". Reuters. 2011-04-08. Retrieved 2011-05-12. 
  17. ↑ "TripAdvisor acquires Where I've Been". TripAdvisor. 2011-07-11. 
  18. ↑ Dennis Schaal (November 22, 2011). "Expedia readies TripAdvisor spinoff citing hotel review reliability". Retrieved April 21, 2012. 
  19. ↑ A weak Wall Street welcome for Newton-based TripAdvisor - Business - The Boston Globe
  20. ↑ "TripAdvisor is now the world’s largest social travel website". Traveltradejournal.com. 2012-03-17. Retrieved 2012-04-24. 
  21. ↑ "TripAdvisor unveils next phase of Facebook tie-in, friends of friends included in reviews". Tnooz. 2012-04-11. Retrieved 2012-04-24. 
  22. ↑ "TripAdvisor Acquires Wanderfly". TripAdvisor. 2012-10-02. Retrieved 2012-10-02. 
  23. ↑ "TripAdvisor Buys GateGuru App". Zacks Investment Research. 2013-06-20. Retrieved 2013-06-20. 
  24. ↑ Dodson, Sean (2007-07-21). "Best of the net: Tripadvisor - the great divide". The Guardian. Retrieved 2008-09-22. 
  25. ↑ Cornwall hotel bribes guests to write good reviews on TripAdvisor.com - Mirror Online
  26. ↑ Caterer and Hotelkeeper interview – Christine Petersen, TripAdvisor. Caterersearch.com. 10 Nov 2011. Last accessed 05 Dec 2011.
  27. ↑ "Notification of new reviews". Tripadvisor. Retrieved 12 November 2012. 
  28. ↑ "ASA to Investigate TripAdvisor". Guardian.co.uk. 2011-09-02. 
  29. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16823012
  30. ↑ "Trip Advisor rebuked over 'trust' claims by ASA". BBC and ASA. 2012-02-01. 
  31. ↑ "TripAdvisor removes 'reviews you can trust' slogan from its website". Daily Mail.co.uk. 2011-09-13. 
  32. ↑ Oliver Smith (13 Sep 2011). "TripAdvisor removes 'reviews you can trust' slogan from website". The Telegraph. Retrieved 21 April 2012. 
  33. ↑ http://news.stv.tv/highlands-islands/113661-guesthouse-owner-sues-travel-website-tripadvisor-over-negative-review/
  34. ↑ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2216502/Tiny-B-amp-B-deals-blow-Tripadvisor-wins-landmark-victory-visitors-posted-bad-reviews.html
  35. ↑ http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/13/business/la-fi-mo-tripadvisor-fined-20120713

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