Tripadvisor Plus Is Case Study in Online Travel Hype
Skift Take
Less than a year ago, a Tripadvisor pitch deck about Tripadvisor Plus touted its "multibillion dollar revenue potential." Despite the company expressing confidence in Plus when it scrapped its business model in September, Tripadvisor admitted last week "we haven't found the product-market fit that we're looking for."
Dennis' Online Travel Briefing
Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, Executive Editor and online travel rockstar Dennis Schaal will bring readers exclusive reporting and insight into the business of online travel and digital booking, and how this sector has an impact across the travel industry.It was only a little more than a year ago that Tripadvisor co-founder and CEO Steve Kaufer touted the company's fledgling — and since all but obliterated — Tripadvisor Plus subscription membership program for discounted hotel rooms as potentially a billion dollar business.
"You could think of it (Tripadvisor) as we serve 1 billion travelers a year," Kaufer told financial analysts in February 2021. "And if -- I have to say this carefully — but if it's only 10 million that sign up for Tripadvisor Plus, that's still less than 1 percent of our annual traffic. But 10 million sign-ups times $100, and obviously, the math works pretty nicely in a recurring subscription revenue."
Subscriptions were — and still are — deservedly hot in travel and beyond. Financial analysts jumped on the Tripadvisor Plus bandwagon, and bought into the boasts. In February 2021, Bernstein's Richard Clarke raised his price target on Tripadvisor stock, in part because
