Tripadvisor Q1 revenue up 42% compared to 2022

Tripadvisor is reporting revenue in the first quarter of this year was $371 million, compared to $262 million in the same quarter of 2022 – a 42% increase.

The bulk of that revenue - $244 million - continues to come from Tripadvisor Core, which it defines as Tripadvisor-branded hotels, display and platform, Tripadvisor experiences and dining and other offerings such as cruises, rental, flights and cars. That’s a 28% increase year-on-year.

The Viator segment, while smaller at $115 million in revenue in Q1, continues to show much more growth, up 105% compared to the first quarter of 2022. For the full 12-month period of 2022, Viator accounted for 33% of Tripadvisor’s total revenue, up from just 20% in 2021, and the figures from Q1 of this year account for a similar share.

Adjusted EBITDA in Q1 was up 22% compared to the same period of 2022, to $33 million in Q1 this year. Adjusted EBITDA is 9% of revenue. Tripadvisor reported net loss in the quarter of $73 million, up 115% year-on-year.

“We are pleased with our strong start to 2023, delivering a solid quarter across all segments,” said Matt Goldberg, CEO of Tripadvisor.

“Travel demand remained healthy and our teams executed well, continuing to deliver initiatives aimed at driving value for our customers and partners. We are excited about our 2023 plan to drive further engagement by leveraging our unique data, content and planning tools, capture more of the large and growing experiences opportunity and fortify our restaurants marketplace. Our team remains focused on operational execution to drive long-term, sustainable growth and profit.”

In a call Thursday morning to discuss the results, UBS analyst Lloyd Walmsley asked Goldberg about the company’s plans to user generative AI and also what it is doing to protect its proprietary data from being scraped by others.

Goldberg said Tripadvisor has a “substantial team” working on generative AI integrations, but it is intentionally moving slowly rather than “chase the early headlines.”

“As we unlock the value we are thinking about how does the technology integrate into our user experience? How do we embed it into the product experience and drive engagement. We think it can be an accelerant, and ultimately we it want to be in the tools that travelers use to fully plan their itineraries end to end,” he said.

“We have distinctive assets and capabilities - our brand trust, broad reach, signals of intent, quality of reviews from real travelers sharing their actual experiences and more … all of which we can leverage to reinforce our relevance in the travel ecosystem.”

Regarding how Tripadvisor will protect its data assets, Goldberg said the company is considering how it might allow others to crawl and index its content and how to monetize that.

“We’ll always be thinking about how we take that content that we have that’s valuable and make sure that we are rewarded for it in the right way,” he said.

Growth in Core and Viator

The company says growth in Tripadvisor Core was driven by strong performance in revenue from branded hotels – up 24% year-on-year - and experiences, which was up 65%. For Viator, gross booking value was more than $800 million. 

Tripadvisor says selling and marketing costs as a percent of revenue rose five percentage points year-over-year to 59%. Those costs - $219 million in Q1 – were up 55% compared to the same period in 2022.

The majority of those costs relate to marketing of experiences offerings within both Viator and Tripadvisor Core, with a focus on using both channels to drive conversions in experiences.

“The way we are aligning the two to work together, we are enthusiastic about the advantage that is created,” Goldberg said.