TripAdvisor’s Instant Booking Bet Looks Ugly Right Now
Photo Credit: TripAdvisor's new Instant Booking product has changed its relationship with consumers as well as partners. Skift
Skift Take
TripAdvisor continues to labor to transform its business from a media/advertising model toward a booking site -- under the glare of all-too-often impatient pundits and investors. The big decline in its revenue per hotel shopper, meanwhile, is likely a temporary hurdle but TripAdvisor management still has a helluva lot to prove.
This is the problem with being a public company like TripAdvisor — the scrutiny is intense.
TripAdvisor basically completed the global rollout in the first quarter of Instant Booking, the feature that enables customers to book hotels without leaving the company's sites and apps, and the results were ugly.
TripAdvisor's revenue per hotel shopper fell 24 percent year over year in the first quarter, intensifying after a 12 percent decline in the fourth quarter. The reasons are largely a dilution in monetization because of the rollout of Instant Booking, the transition toward mobile, and the recognition of a greater portion of revenue at the time of stay instead of earlier when users clicked on a metasearch link.
Trip
