Interview: TripAdvisor CEO on Building the Perfect Trip

Editor’s Note: Skift is publishing a series of interviews with online travel CEOs talking about the Future of Travel Booking, and the evolving habits and device preferences of travel consumers. Check out all the interviews as they come out here. TripAdvisor touts itself as the world's largest travel company. With its more than 170 million user reviews and opinions, and array of portfolio companies and products ranging from SeatGuru for flights to Hotel Shopper and now Viator for tours and Lafourchette for dining reservations, TripAdvisor can influence travelers' plans in nearly every part of the journey. Skift discussed the future of travel booking with TripAdvisor co-founder and CEO Stephen Kaufer, and along the way Kaufer touched on the company's recent acquisitions, direct-booking initiatives and mobile, the company's TV advertising campaign, and vacation rentals, among other topics. An edited version of the discussion follows: Skift: With the acquisitions of Viator for in-destination tours and activities and Lafourchette for restaurant reservations, TripAdvisor is well-positioned to enable travelers to search and book on the site and in your apps almost throughout the travel cycle. From city guides to flights, hotels, tours and restaurants, what do you see as the most important trends in the world of travel booking? Stephen Kaufer: It is certainly no secret that TripAdvisor has a lot of travelers who are looking to plan the entire trip, not just their flight and hotel stay or vacation rental. So with the traffic and traction we have it's always been how can we do a better job and do we have a business model that supports and increased investment. We looked to different business models in the attractions and restaurant space and, frankly, the transaction model, helping people more conveniently make a reservation or buy a ticket for what they want is the most obvious one. For restaurants, we picked up the leader in France and Spain [Lafourchette], for attractions we picked up the clear global leader [Viator] because we felt those products would help our travelers plan and have the perfect trip. Is it an end-to-end solution? Of course not. There's a zillion other things travelers do when they take a trip. Can we help in one more segment? Sure. And if we can then we continue to deliver the quality products that Viator and Laforchette already have, excellent. Do we think we can help them scale globally? Yes we do. We think we can mak