Tripadvisor’s Growth Is Way Behind Rivals. Next Question: What Gets Sold?

Skift Take Tripadvisor has little momentum to show. It's not lost on investors, or the activist investors who now hold four board seats. Tripadvisor trailed GetYourGuide in experiences and Trivago in hotel metasearch in the second quarter, as the company faced SEO headwinds, bad weather in Europe, and travelers opting for cheaper experiences. On Tripadvisor's second-quarter earnings call Thursday, an analyst pressed executives on why the company was lagging its rivals. Tripadvisor's experiences revenue rose just 3% year over year, compared with 34% first-half growth at GetYourGuide in North America. Tripadvisor's hotels revenue fell 23%, even as Trivago's revenue jumped 18% in the same quarter. Chief Financial Officer Mike Noonan pushed back on the comparison. Tripadvisor's experiences business remains larger than GetYourGuide's, its next-largest competitor in North America, he said, and Viator — one of two brands Tripadvisor sells experiences through, alon