Exclusive: Viator Officials Depart as TripAdvisor Installs Vacation Rental Execs as Replacements

More than two years after TripAdvisor acquired tours and activities leader Viator and several weeks after Viator CEO Barrie Seidenberg announced her resignation, at least three other Viator executives are leaving as TripAdvisor brings in members of its vacation rentals team to scale the business faster, Skift has learned. In an internal email sent to the Viator/attractions staff Wednesday, and obtained by Skift, TripAdvisor CEO Stephen Kaufer reveals that Viator vice president, product, Scott McNeely, who's been with the company since December 2005, and Viator vice president, marketing Kelly Gillease, who likewise has worked at Viator since late 2005, will both be leaving TripAdvisor in March. The departing executives didn't respond to requests for comment but resentment about the changes can be read into the fact that Gillease, for example, is leaving the company after only having been promoted to vice president, marketing, for TripAdvisor's attractions unit in October. Vacation Rentals Team Takes Over Attractions Dermot Halpin, who headed both vacation rentals and added attractions to his responsibilities at TripAdvisor when Seidenberg resigned, will be bringing in people from his vacation rentals team and others within TripAdvisor to replace departing Viator executives, including Anita Ngai, who is general manager for Viator in Asia Pacific, according to Kaufer's email. [See the full text of the email below.] Unlike McNeely and Gillease, Ngai had only been with the attractions team at TripAdvisor for about 13 months. "The attractions space is a billion-dollar opportunity, we’re in the lead, and we remain committed," Kaufer wrote. "As we scale from a medium-sized to a large business, we have a new set of challenges to meet: We must build the biggest and best selection of bookable attractions, focus on the matching the traveler to these attractions to drive conversion, and take full advantage of the incredi