Tripadvisor (NASDAQ: TRIP) is the world's largest travel reviews platform, founded in 2000 in Needham, Massachusetts. The company built its position on user-generated reviews of hotels, restaurants and attractions and has since evolved into a hybrid metasearch, marketplace and content business.
Tripadvisor monetizes traffic through hotel meta auctions (CPC clicks to OTA and chain partners), commissions on tours and experiences sold via its Viator subsidiary, restaurant reservations via TheFork in Europe, display advertising, and subscription services for hotels and restaurants. Viator and TheFork have become the group's primary growth engines in recent years.
Tripadvisor is the world's largest source of travel reviews and one of the most visited travel websites globally. While its hotel metasearch revenue has been challenged by Google's increasing dominance of travel intent traffic, the group has successfully pivoted toward experiences as a high-margin, fast-growing category through Viator.
Tripadvisor was originally part of Expedia and was spun out as an independent public company in 2011. Key consumer assets within the group include Tripadvisor.com, Viator (one of the largest tours and activities platforms in the world), TheFork restaurant booking platform across Europe, and Cruise Critic.
Events
Delayed 15 min. Adjusted closes. Not financial advice.
After a Q2 that knocked a quarter off its share price, Tripadvisor's market cap sits near $1.1bn and the sale speculation has restarted. Its billion reviews are an asset — the question is whether it can charge for them.
Tripadvisor will make a selection of its Viator and Tripadvisor tours, activities and attractions bookable on Airbnb later this year, ending Airbnb's decade-long attempt to build its experiences inventory entirely on its own.
Tripadvisor's continuing-operations revenue fell 7% in Q2 while adjusted EBITDA dropped 21%. Management put a number on the search problem: SEO headwinds took roughly five percentage points off Experiences growth.
Tripadvisor has executed the definitive purchase agreement to sell TheFork to American Express for $700 million in cash, after completing the French Works Council consultation. Closing is expected by the end of 2026, pending European antitrust clearance.
Tripadvisor has agreed to sell its European restaurant-booking platform TheFork to American Express for $700 million in cash, ending months of strategic review and clearing the way for a sharper focus on Viator and experiences.