Tripadvisor Sees Traffic Decline from AI Overviews, Considers ‘Strategic Alternatives’ (Again)
Photo Credit: Tripadvisor's Matt Goldberg was interviewed by Skift Research's Seth Borko at Skift Global Forum on September 19, 2024. Skift
Skift Take
Tripadvisor has borne the brunt of declining SEO traffic from Google for many years. Now AI Overviews are pinching Tripadvisor even harder.
Tripadvisor CEO Matt Goldberg told investors Thursday that the company is seeing "ongoing declines in flyby visitors to our site due to the changing search landscape and the rise of AI overviews."
Chief Financial Officer Michael Noonan, speaking during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call, acknowledged that free search engine optimization (SEO) traffic is important to Tripadvisor's legacy businesses. However, he said SEO is expected to generate less than 10% of its strategic Experience businesses' gross booking volumes by the end of 2026.
Noonan added that Tripadvisor's Experiences businesses, including the Viator and Tripadvisor, are not reliant on SEO to increase margins, but will leverage the brands in performanc