Expedia Could Find a Silver Lining in Trivago's Woes
Skift Take
As a sage songwriter once said, "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." Trivago CFO Axel Hefer knows that, and he said current headwinds are obviously harder to manage than tailwinds. But if Trivago can work its way out of the mess it's in, it may emerge as a stronger company.
On the TV screen, your local Trivago actor hawking the brand may flash an occasional smile, but the countenances are much more stern these days among the managing directors running the Germany-based hotel-search site.
These are, after all, sobering times filled with ample introspection about prior strategies from Trivago. Chief Financial Officer Axel Hefer told analysts at an investor meeting several weeks ago in New York that the hotel-search site's revenue outlook is "very tough," with flat to negative growth numbers expected over the first half of 2018. Things could get a tad better in the second half of the year when the year-over-year comparisons aren't as onerous.
Trivago had implemented a series of backend changes in the first half of 2017, and its largest customer, the Priceline Group — which had accounted for 47 percent of Trivago's revenue in the first nine months of the year — ended up severely curtailing its advertising spend
