TripAdvisor says its performance will continue to be impaired during 2016 as it switches models from media advertising to instant booking for hotels.
The company saw revenues fall by 3% in the first quarter of 2016 compared to the same period in 2015, from $363 million to $352 million.
As a result, total adjusted EBITDA fell by 33% from $127 million to $85 million between Q1 2015 to Q1 2016.
Revenues from hotel-related activities fell by 5% to $303 million in the first three months of the year, compared to those from its non-hotel business which climbed by 14% to $49 million.
TripAdvisor said in Feburary this year that the ongoing roll-out of instant booking would negatively affect its revenues in the immediate future, primarily due to the introduction of instant booking.
In the latest earnings report issued this week, CEO Steve Kaufer says its introduction "remains dilutive to our financials and drove significant deceleration" to the hotel segment wedge of revenues.
Chief financial officer Ernst Teunissen goes a step further and explains why:
"Given business model shifts towards transaction-based revenue in both the hotel and non-hotel segments, we now have a higher percentage of revenue recognized at stay, or when a ticket or a reservation is use, compared to the comparable period last year."
In other words, there's less money coming in as the value of a click is lower on instant booking than the existing model, plus many of those participating in instant booking are not collecting the guest revenue until the stay takes place, long after TripAdvisor's involvement in the shopping process.
Teunissen says the "near-term financial results are masking our near-term progress", with the US - where instant booking was launched first - showing a "substantially lower headwind" compared to other markets where it is gradually being introduced.
Despite this, he adds:
"We are driving more awareness, higher engagement, improving conversion, and more repeat bookings. These trends give us confidence that our other markets will exhibit similar improvements over time."
Still, TripAdvisor says it is seeing an improvement in the percentage of repeat visits from those that have previously used instant booking.
Instant booking is now available fully in the UK, US and Canada, with the rest of Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America expected to be completed during the first half of this year.
Elsewhere, TripAdvisor says its goal of making its attractions division its next "billion-dollar business" is continuing.
Kaufer says the company is "moving quickly to further cement our leadership position in this category".
Viator's Marketplace platform has increased the number of bookable products by almost 30% during the first quarter of 2016, with 655,000 attractions now listed on the site.
This is "a tremendous greenfield opportunity in front of us", Kaufer claims.
Instant booking on the TripAdvisor apps for attractions launched during the first quarter of this year, giving what Kaufer says is a "better user experience".