Monday, September 26, 2005
Understanding Online Customers’ Needs and
Expectations
Robin Ingle
Vice President, International Development

Some TripAdvisor Statistics
• The leading independent travel information & research destination on the
Web
• 18 million+ unique monthly visitors
• 2.6 million+ unbiased reviews, opinions, and recommendations from real
travelers
• 1 review is submitted every minute of every day
• Travelers contribute content on:
– 23,000 cities
– 150,000 hotels
– 63,000 attractions
– 92,000 restaurants
• ...including 100,000 destination photos (since Jan. 2005), with traveler-
submitted photos of ~12,000 hotels.
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www.tripadvisor.com

Marriott Hotel Berlin – September 5, 2005
Candid traveler photo
“Just great - love every
Marriott I have stayed
at during the past years.”
- August 2005
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www.tripadvisor.com

\"WARNING!! Take your Clorox and Penicillin!!\"
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www.tripadvisor.com

Unbiased, Honest, Global. – Real Advice from Real Travelers.
• \"Druggie/drunk after my camera!\"
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www.tripadvisor.com

TripAdvisor History
• Founded February 2000 by Steve Kaufer and Langley Steinert with a goal of
producing the Web’s best reference for travel information and searchable
travel deals
• Site launched November 2000, profitable by August 2002
• Purchased by IAC - March 2004
• Part of Expedia, Inc. - August 2005
• One million reviews/opinions - January 2005
• Two million reviews/opinions - June 2005
• Today:
– 2.6 million+ reviews/opinions August 2005
– This year alone, grew from 13 million to 18 million+ unique visitors/month
worldwide (comScore Media Metrix)
– Double digit increases MOM
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www.tripadvisor.com

Monetizing our Content • Our users see a nice array of top
booking sites including…
• Matching content with commerce – Active Hotels
is how we earn our keep.
– eBookers
• Deep-links to our commerce partners – Expedia
sites are automatically indexed into – Hotels.com
our content pages
– Lastminute
– A link to your booking page for “Hotel
– Opodo, etc.
XYZ” is placed on the content page
for “Hotel XYZ” – Octopus
– No keyword management required – Travelocity
– Your links only appear on the most
– Venere
relevant pages
• Plus hotel brand sites including…
• Commercial terms are flexible
– Hilton
– Cost per Click (CPC)
– Hyatt
– Cost per Acquisition (CPA)
– InterContinental Hotel Group
• Because of strong relevance, our
– Radisson, etc.
“look to book” ratio is high.
– Starwood
• The volume and quality of our traffic
– Travelodge
is generally quite desirable (and
– Wyndham
profitable) for our partners.
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www.tripadvisor.com

Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match…
• You don’t want EVERYONE staying at your hotel.
• TripAdvisor helps you and your best customers find each other.
• TripAdvisor helps you and your worst customers avoid each other.
It’s not a good deal if it’s a bad hotel...
…unless you’re looking for a bad hotel.
• Our users are looking for THEMSELVES in other reviews.
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www.tripadvisor.com

How do you find your perfect matches?
• Through your advertising you set an expectation.
– Before they book, travelers read TripAdvisor content to take the
mystery out of their travel experience
• TripAdvisor is the largest open, unbiased travel forum for
travelers to speak their truth.
• Through review and forum sites like TripAdvisor your customers
tell you if their stay lived up to that expectation
– After they return home, travelers add to TripAdvisor content to tell
you how you did
– Listen to them…your future customers do.
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www.tripadvisor.com

Hotels Love Us…Sometimes:
“Good
“I don't give the authorization to
compliments
publish the \"user reviews\" and my
make us
question is if it is possible to
glad, but
remove/cancel the \"user reviews\"
bad and good regarding us. If you negative
are so kindly to do this for me I comments
will send you by ordinary mail a will improve
big bottle of our original lemon us a lot.”
liquer of the Amalfi Coast called
‘limoncello’.”
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www.tripadvisor.com

Relevant, Vital.
\"I haven't gone on a trip or stayed at
a hotel without consulting
TripAdvisor in three years.\"
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www.tripadvisor.com

Unbiased, Honest, Global. – Real Advice from Real Travelers.
“TripAdvisor provides
I called reception and
an incredibly
said \"There is no water
valuable service to
coming out of our taps\"
travellers. Together
we can put the and she replied \"Well it
cheating/ is an old hotel\" !!!
scummy/dangerous
places out of
business!”
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www.tripadvisor.com

Unbiased, Honest, Global. – Real Advice from Real Travelers.
“I would buy
this place and “The bed was so
live here – comfortable we
if I could couldn’t get out of
afford it!.” it and go enjoy the
city.”
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www.tripadvisor.com

Unbiased, Honest, Global. – Real Advice from Real Travelers.
“Well, it’s a cross
“Can you spell
between a hospital
N-A-S-T-Y?
and an old folks
What we thought
home. The bed linen
was the
is clean, but don’t look
bell hop was a
under those beds
king size roach.”
(yikes!).”
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www.tripadvisor.com

Unbiased, Honest, Global. – Real Advice from Real Travelers.
“We were greeted with the biggest of
smiles and
warmest of hearts. The staff is just
so friendly and
nothing is too much bother.”
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www.tripadvisor.com

Brand Halo? Polish Carefully…
• Berlin - #7 in Popularity Index is 15-room Askanischer Hof and #10 is
82 room Brandenburger Hof
• London - seven of the top 10 hotels have fewer than 60 rooms; #2 in
Popularity Index is 33-room Parkes Hotel
• Paris - eight of the top 10 hotels have fewer than 100 rooms; #1 is 60-
room Hotel Lancaster
• Rome - #1 in Popularity Index is 19-room Hotel Santa Maria
• #1 rated hotel in Munich, Hotel Uhland has zero commerce partner
representation.
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www.tripadvisor.com

Ramada Plaza Berlin Hotel – July 20, 2004
\"Very disappointed\"
“I booked my stay at this hotel (and paid it in full) through Expedia.
We also confirmed our stay. When I arrived, I was told that the hotel
had \"accidentally\" overbooked due to a computer problem and did not
have a room for us. They told us they would find another hotel of the
same class, but the hotel which they found for us was old, the reception
and lobby was dark and dreary and the hotel did not have any amenities
(such as a pool). When I called the Ramada Plaza to tell them that the
substitute hotel was unacceptable, they simply told me that there was
nothing they could do as that was the last room in all of Berlin that they
could find for us. While the staff at Ramada was very nice about helping
us and paid the taxi ride to the next hotel, I find it unacceptable that
the Ramada Plaza overbooked its rooms in the first place.”
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www.tripadvisor.com

Ramada Plaza Berlin Hotel – August 21, 2004
\"I can't sing its praises enough!\"
“This is a truely lovely hotel which is made even more so by
the lovely staff who couldnt do enough for us. Like another
reviewer we booked through Expedia and had the same trouble
when we arrived (the hotel being overbooked) but the hotel
sent us to another hotel which was also a 4* and was approx 5
minutes from the Ramada Plaza and was a very nice hotel. The
next day a taxi was sent to take us back to the Ramada Plaza
and because of the inconvenience we were upgraded to a suite
for the remainder of our holiday (6 nights) which was
FANTASTIC. I will certainly be returning to Berlin if only to
spend another week at this lovely hotel.”
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www.tripadvisor.com

Westin Grand Berlin – June 2005
\"Terrible rooms - stay away\"
June 30, 2005: A TripAdvisor Member, Zürich, Switzerland
I stayed at the Westin Berlin 3 or 4 times. This time I stayed for
two nights and they gave me a room upgrade to a renovated
room. Renovated? Yes, they call it renovated. The \"renovated\"
rooms are located to the courtyard and have the same size like
the normal rooms. Bad smell, ugly furniture, bad design, old
fashioned, dirty, noisy a/c and not really a heavenly bed I
guess. Forget about the rooms in this hotel!
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www.tripadvisor.com

Westin Grand Berlin – August 2005
Management response
August 2, 2005: (name withheld), Front Office Manager (Management
representative)
Dear guest,
thank you very much for your review about our rooms. Unfortunately you
were not satisfied with the style and the size of our rooms. I deeply regret
that and was a bit surprised either. Usually our Garden rooms are the
most desired category from our guest. We haven't had any complaints
about them so far. Furthermore we are currently changing the style of
some rooms, which will be our Grand Deluxe category. The rooms
will be ready at the end of August this year. This will be a modern
classical style then. Try them out.
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www.tripadvisor.com

Westin Grand Berlin – August 2005
\"Is this the same hotel…\"
“…that has the bad stinky rooms? Not ours. The location
was great, the lobby was great, and the room was great. Nice
bed, lovely linens, a spotless bathroom with no bad smell! And
the pool and spa area was one of the nicest I've seen! Sorry to
the people who got bad rooms - ours was close to the center
and must have been renovated. ...”
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www.tripadvisor.com

Summary:
• Find places where your customers are talking – and listen.
• Respond to poor reviews- publicly and privately.
• The Democracy of the Web provides a level playing field
– The cost/value equation is unique to every property – regardless of size or
brand affiliation
– Small properties can take share by trying harder
– Branded properties need to live up to brand promises with every customer,
every day.
• Start your relationship with your potential guest during the
evaluation stage.
– Be in the consideration set when people are making cost/value decisions.
– Adjacency to unbiased content supports your site’s credibility.
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Get to know us!
• Christine Petersen
Head of Marketing
christine@tripadvisor.com
• Robin Ingle
Head of International Development
robin@tripadvisor.com
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