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Online Travel

TripAdvisor Says It Doesn't Need TV Ads Now, Thanks to Booking.com Partnership

Dennis Schaal photo
Dennis Schaal

Photo Credit: TripAdvisor is eliminating TV advertising for now because it believes it will be more beneficial to focus on increasing its international rollout of booking on TripAdvisor in partnership with Booking.com because of the latter's strength in languages, local currencies and payments, and other content. Shown is Booking.com Japan site. Booking.com

Skift Take

TV advertising by online travel agencies has been very much in vogue over the last couple of years. But TripAdvisor decided it doesn't need it for now and instead is going to take its new partnership with Booking.com and run with that instead.

TripAdvisor officials decided now that Booking.com and sister companies Priceline.com and Agoda will be participating as partners in TripAdvisor Instant Booking, who needs TV advertising. So TripAdvisor officials announced today during the its third quarter earnings call that the company will "pause" TV advertising in 2016 and devote some or all of that spend to brand advertising in other channels. TripAdvisor spent $20 million on TV advertising in the third quarter, for example. If the logic of TripAdvisor plus Booking.com equals killing TripAdvisor's two-year-old TV advertising campaigns escapes you, then here's the thinking: TripAdvisor CEO Stephen Kaufer said TripAdvisor already has enough traffic -- 350 million unique visitors during peak months -- and while the TV campaigns increased brand awareness, an area that was already a TripAdvisor strength, there wasn't enough hard e

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