TripAdvisor CEO Kaufer Defiantly Vows to Stay Committed to Instant Booking
Photo Credit: TripAdvisor co-founder and CEO Stephen Kaufer tells Skift founder and CEO Rafat Ali and the audience at the Skift Global Forum in Manhattan September 28 that he has a lot more work to do in the future at TripAdvisor to improve the traveler journey. Skift
Skift Take
Two headlines here: TripAdvisor CEO remains adamantly committed to Instant Booking -- and he isn't going anywhere anytime soon. He's still excited about his gig.
There's no quit in TripAdvisor CEO Stephen Kaufer when it comes to transforming the company into one that handles hotel bookings.
Speaking at the Skift Global Forum in Lincoln Center in Manhattan Wednesday, Kaufer said of TripAdvisor's Instant Booking initiative: “I’m completely convinced we are doing the right thing for the strength of the business” over the long term.
With Instant Booking, travelers book hotels on TripAdvisor without having to navigate to a hotel or online travel agency site to complete the booking. Instead, hotels and online travel agency partners of TripAdvisor pay a commission and handle customer service for guests.
Kaufer acknowledged “we’d be attracting more [short-term] revenue if we didn’t do this transition” from metasearch links only to metasearch and bookings on TripAdvisor as an option.
Skift founder and CEO Rafat Ali asked Kaufer about the decline in TripAdvisor's share price as it labors to transition to Instant Booking, a
