Type of site
|
Public |
---|---|
Traded as |
NASDAQ: TRIP NASDAQ-100 Component S&P 500 Component |
Founded | February 2000 |
Headquarters | Needham, Massachusetts, U.S. |
Area served | Worldwide |
Owner | Liberty TripAdvisor Holdings (13.7%) |
Founder(s) | Stephen Kaufer |
Key people | Stephen Kaufer, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Inventor West |
Industry | Travel services |
Products | Hotel and flights booking, Vacation rentals, Restaurant finding, Travel guides |
Revenue | $1.492 Billion in 2015 |
Employees | 3,008 people as of Dec 2015 Q4 Report |
Website | tripadvisor |
Native client(s) on | iOS, watchOS, Android, Windows, Windows Phone |
TripAdvisor, Inc. is an American travel website company providing reviews of travel-related content. It also includes interactive travel forums.
TripAdvisor was an early adopter of user-generated content. The website services are free to users, who provide most of the content, and the website is supported by an advertising business model.
TripAdvisor, headquartered in Needham, Massachusetts, claims to be the largest travel site in the world, with more than 60 million members and over 170 million reviews and opinions of hotels, restaurants, attractions and other travel-related businesses. TripAdvisor Media Group operates 25 travel brands including TripAdvisor, Airfarewatchdog, BookingBuddy, Citymaps, Cruise Critic, Family Vacation Critic, FlipKey, GateGuru, Holiday Lettings, Holiday Watchdog, Independent Traveler, Jetsetter, lafourchette, Niumba, OneTime, SeatGuru, SmarterTravel, Tingo, TravelPod, Tripbod, VacationHomeRentals, Viator, and VirtualTourist. TripAdvisor operates websites internationally, in such places as Austria, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China (under the brand 猫途鹰 www.tripadvisor.cn), Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, The Netherlands,Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, the U.K., and the U.S.
In February 2000, TripAdvisor was founded by Stephen Kaufer, Langley Steinert, and several others. Kaufer says the original idea wasn't a user generated social media site to swap reviews. Rather, "We started as a site where we were focused more on those official words from guidebooks or newspapers or magazines. We also had a button in the very beginning that said, "Visitors add your own review", and boy, did that just take off. Pretty soon the number of average consumer reviews far surpassed the number of 'professional reviews'. That is when the site really turned into this collection of what the normal traveler was saying wherever they were going." Original financing was obtained from Flagship Ventures, the Bollard Group, and private investors.
In 2004, the company was purchased by IAC/InterActiveCorp.