Daily Podcast: Tripadvisor’s New CEO

Today’s edition of Skift’s daily podcast discusses Tripadvisor’s choice for its new CEO, the key to Marriott’s strong quarterly earnings, and Lufthansa’s lure for business travelers.

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Episode Notes

Hotel industry analysts predicted a casualty of the pandemic would be hotel companies’ push to land direct bookings. Similar crises had prompted hotels to use online travel agencies instead to attract guests. But Marriott International rode a record number of direct bookings to a profitable first quarter, reports Senior Hospitality Editor Sean O’Neill.

CEO Anthony Capuano said during Marriott’s first-quarter earnings call on Wednesday that direct digital bookings for the period were up 14 percent compared to the same timeframe in 2019. Direct bookings are valuable for travel companies because they help avoid the commissions of between 10 and 30 percent that online travel agencies charge. Capuano partly attributed the surge in direct bookings to the growing popularity of its Bonvoy loyalty program app, downloads of which were 70 percent above pre-Covid marks.

Marriott generated $377 million in net income during the first quarter. The company also recorded an 80 percent year-over-year increase in first-quarter revenues.

We turn next to major news from Tripadvisor. The company is appointing veteran media executive Matt Goldberg as its new CEO, reports Executive Editor Dennis Schaal.

Goldberg’s resume includes serving as CEO at travel guidebook publisher Lonely Planet and holding executive roles at, among other companies, the News Corporation and digital advertising firm The Trade Desk. He has long had ties to Tripadvisor Chairman Greg Maffei, having served as the head of corporate development at QVC Group, which was part of Maffei’s Liberty Interactive Corporation.

Goldberg replaces Steve Kaufer, who had served as CEO for 22 years after co-founding the company. Tripadvisor had announced last November that Kaufer would step down in 2022 after the company had appointed his successor. Schaal writes that despite Tripadvisor looking at internal candidates to be the new CEO, Kaufer’s replacement would likely come from outside the company.

Finally, Lufthansa is making a renewed push to capitalize on the sector’s surprising recovery. The German airline announced a co-working space partnership on Wednesday in an attempt to attract business travelers, writes Corporate Travel Editor Matthew Parsons.

The carrier is launching its Lufthansa Global Spaces with office reservation platform Hubli. The new workspace project will enable passengers to book desks, offices and conference rooms. While it will only be available in five major cities during a three-month trial run, Lufthansa and Hubli have plans for a global rollout if the project is successful. Hubli has access to roughly 185,000 spaces in its platform.

Lufthansa also unveiled a new business travel platform named BusinessToGo as part of its partnership with corporate travel agency startup TripActions. BusinessToGo is geared toward small and medium businesses, providing such companies access to accommodation, rail, and car rental content. Like Lufthansa’s workspace platform, BusinessToGo is starting out small — it’s currently only available in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Belgium.