Tripadvisor

Tripadvisor was born from a frustration that many travelers know well. In 1998, Stephen Kaufer was planning a trip to Mexico with his wife Caroline and couldn't find honest, unbiased hotel reviews anywhere online. His wife half-joked that he should build a site to help people share their real experiences. Two years later, on Valentine's Day 2000, Tripadvisor launched in Needham, Massachusetts, with co-founders Kaufer, Langley Steinert, Nick Shanny, and Thomas Palka. The early years were rocky. The company initially tried a B2B model, licensing its search technology to travel portals like Expedia and AOL. After 9/11, revenue dried up for 18 months, and Tripadvisor came within six months of bankruptcy. It survived by pivoting to a consumer-facing, ad-supported model and reached profitability by 2002, a rare feat for a dot-com. IAC bought the company for about $210 million in 2004, and it later became part of Expedia before being spun off as a public company on NASDAQ in December 2011, with a valuation around $4 billion.

Today, Tripadvisor's flagship site operates in 40 countries and 20 languages, hosting roughly 1 billion reviews and opinions on about 8 million establishments. The company's portfolio extends well beyond the main site, encompassing brands like Viator for tours and activities, TheFork for restaurant reservations, Cruise Critic for cruise reviews, FlipKey and Holiday Lettings for vacation rentals, SeatGuru for airline seat maps, and Bokun.io for travel industry software. The business runs through three segments: Brand Tripadvisor, Viator, and TheFork. In 2024, the company reported $1.83 billion in revenue. A notable quirk of its revenue model: about 25% of 2023 earnings came from Expedia Group and Booking Holdings via pay-per-click ads, making these companies both partners and competitors.

Leadership changed in July 2022 when Matt Goldberg, formerly CEO of Lonely Planet and an executive at The Trade Desk and News Corp, took over as president and CEO, succeeding Kaufer after his 22-year tenure. The company also resolved a convoluted ownership structure through a merger with Liberty Media. Tripadvisor's biggest challenge? Google. Kaufer himself has said that most travelers start trip planning on Google, making it the primary upstream competitor. Despite that, Tripadvisor remains the go-to source for authentic traveler reviews, with over 400 million monthly visitors as of 2022. [edit]