Customer

 Trip Advisor’s core business (hotel ratings and bookings) has two main
customers: i) consumers who visit the site and ii) hotels and property managers
who list on the site.

o Why is Trip Advisor appealing to consumers? Why do consumers read

reviews? Why do they write reviews?
 Trip advisors provided consumers unbiased comments and
perspectives about traveling to a specific locale. Consumers
reviews because they don’t’ want to read well prepared brochures
or websites, they want unbiased real-world reviews about places
and hotels they’re contemplating on booking. Consumers also want
to write reviews because they feel grateful for the advice they got
from the site and they want to give back.

o What do hotel owners and property managers think about Trip Advisor?
 They like TA for the significant traffic the service provides for their
websites, however they also have concerns about the reviewers
anonymity as competitors and angry customers on the platform
could skew the reviews and hurt the company’s reputation.

o How does Trip Advisor balance the needs of consumers and hotel
managers? How do they create value in this network?
 Trip advisor provides consumers a wide array of options and
reviews under one website, while also allowing hotel managers to
get more access and exposure to potential clients that they may not
have reached with their regular marketing. They create a value for
both sides by simplifying the interaction between the two parties.

Company
 How does Trip Advisor monetize its user generated content (UGC)? How does it
differ from other sites such as Yelp?
 The bulk of the company's value capture comes from advertising,
but it also earns revenue through business listing subscriptions and
text links. TripAdvisor's heavy user traffic, strong community
engagement, and high-value user base will ensure that its revenue
model remains strong. They differ from Yelp because Trip Advisor
actually pushes traffic to competing sites like Expedia unlike Yelp
who keeps their users under their umbrella instead of pushing them
to Grubhub or DoorDash.

 Why has Trip Advisor been so successful in hotel reviews? Why is it not known
for restaurants, even though it has user reviews on over half a million of them?

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  They are successful because they push out their visitors to OTA’s
which then gives them more access to a wide array of hotels. They
are not known for restaurants because of how they rank the
restaurants. Their rankings are based on popularity and number of
reviews.

Competition
 Who are Trip Advisor’s key competitors and what are their strengths and
weaknesses?
o China: Ctrip and copycat companies
o Vacation Rentals: RBO VRMC rental sites, Craigslist
o Flights: OTAs. Airline companies and Kayak
 Based on your assessment of customer needs, competitive environment, and
company strengths and weaknesses, how should Kaufer prioritize Trip Advisor’s
growth options?
o Can Trip Advisor replicate its success with vacation rentals?
 I think they have an opportunity to grow within this segment.
Awareness is the biggest issue, so increasing awareness from
rental owners can cause a good growth for the company.

o In China?
 China is a little bit more difficult as Ctrip has already established a
market leader position in addition the quick copycat turn around
that’s popular in the country. It’s going to be tough to differentiate
themselves and take market share away from competition because
of the people’s loyalty with own country brand.

o With flights?
 Flights are really important to pursue as the case mentions that this
is usually the first step of someone’s vacation. Getting a share of
this market would be huge for the company and the fact that they
had previous experience would be a natural transition for them.

o Are there other options they should consider?

 Keep focusing on locale activities and promoting them

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