Tripadvisor's Perplexity Deal: AI for Customer Acquisition Is Now a Thing in Travel

There is now an AI customer acquisition channel in travel, and Tripadvisor officials said they are already seeing the benefits.

Tripadvisor CEO Matt Goldberg and Chief Financial Officer Mike Noonan both expressed enthusiasm Thursday about the early results of the company's hotel partnership with the AI answer engine Perplexity, an alliance that began in January.

Goldberg said the Perplexity partnership leverages an "AI first funnel," and the early results show that customers who come to Tripadvisor via Perplexity are "incremental" and "high intent" — meaning they are ready to book — and that's "higher than typical traffic we get."

Existing ways to attract new customers include marketing through Google Search, metasearch engines like Google Hotels and Kayak, and social media such as Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, for example.

Speaking to analysts during Tripadvisor fourth-quarter earnings call, Goldberg said Tripadviso