TripAdvisor’s CEO Says That Apps Are the Key to Future Success
Photo Credit: TripAdvisor's mobile app with its Instant Booking feature. The company sees future success coming from deeper engagement with mobile apps. Skift
Skift Take
TripAdvisor's strategy prioritizes the importance of the app over mobile Web and desktop. With its ability to access Booking.com's trove of hotel descriptions and photos, TripAdvisor is seeing lots of success through its app in driving repeat bookers. The bottom line, though, is cheap hotel prices are key.
TripAdvisor votes for apps over the mobile Web.
The hotel booking and review site aims to handle users regardless whether they visit through its apps, the mobile Web, tablets or desktop but despite a monetization a gap on phones (just 30 percent of desktop monetization), TripAdvisor CEO Steve Kaufer sees apps as the future.
"We believe it will be an app world," Kaufer said during the companies second quarter earnings call August 4, adding it already is in many corners of the globe.
The biggest factor in narrowing that monetization gap is to build consumer habits and expectations that they will find the hotels or attractions they are looking for at the right price when using the app, Kaufer said.
It's all about those repeat bookers, who often save their credit card details, in TripAdvisor apps, Kaufer said.
"We are most pleased with our growth on our app, where hotel shoppers and TripAdvisor-branded click-based and transaction revenue each grew by approximately 50 percent
