Articles tagged “restaurants”

There is little doubt that a limited-time hotel offering will attract the fast food chain's superfans in droves — and result in some extra revenue for the company.

CEO Stephen Kaufer seems confident that the "new TripAdvisor" will be successful. We'll have to wait until later this year before we know whether it is helping the company earn more cash.

TripAdvisor is leveraging its strengths — tours and activities, and restaurants — where it has leadership positions rather than choosing to devote the bulk of its energies in the crowded field of hotels and alternative accommodations. It is a wise choice to differentiate rather than be a mere clone of its competitors.

Fickle investors, meaning those without a long-range view, didn't necessarily appreciate the breadth of the TripAdvisor platform in the past. The company isn't the biggest player out there, but its strong positions in tours and activities, as well as restaurants, is injecting momentum.

Expedia has dealt with a ton of distractions in recent years as it acquired Wotif, Travelocity, Orbitz Worldwide, and HomeAway, for example. CEO Mark Okerstrom wants to focus on the basics instead, and doesn't want to take bold steps into dining reservations or food delivery for now. On the other hand, Expedia is a very acquisitive company so never say never.

Tablet Hotels found itself a world-class strategic buyer to propel its growth. Tablet as part of Michelin will face huge marketing hurdles, and the challenge of trying to reshape Michelin's legacy guide offerings.

Booking.com is taking its sweet time to implement a flights-to-attractions travel offering. Some would say the pace is Google-like in its slowness. But behind the scenes, data reigns supreme, and dictates whether a product is scrapped, implemented with a twist, or then reshaped anew. Refill the popcorn. This will take a while.

Google officials aren't losing any sleep over TripAdvisor spending a few million dollars less on paid search, but TripAdvisor's pullback, as well as similar moves by other large travel players, symbolizes a changing advertising climate and a long-term challenge.

TripAdvisor faces a quandary: It needs to have an alternative accommodations business to round out its hotel offerings, but rentals revenue declined and slowed the otherwise-positive trajectory of its non-hotels segment. While TripAdvisor is a market leader in experiences and restaurants, its rentals business is muddying up the works.

Anthony Bourdain's impact on travel and food really can't be measured.