TripAdvisor

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TripAdvisor

logo
legal form Inc.
ISIN US8969452015
founding 2000
Seat Needham , Massachusetts , United States
United StatesUnited States 
management Stephen Kaufer
Number of employees 3400 (2016)
Branch Tourism
Website tripadvisor.de

TripAdvisor is an American tourism website that offers users individual experience reports to help them plan their vacation. The site includes reports on 1.8 million shops, 4.2 million restaurants , 1.1 million hotels and B & Bs , 830,000 holiday apartments and 730,000 sights in 135,000 travel destinations (as of mid-2016). Experience reports and reviews from travelers, links to reports from newspapers, magazines and travel guides as well as travel forums (electronic "notice boards" ) are offered.

history

TripAdvisor was founded in February 2000 and acquired by InterActiveCorp (IAC for short) in 2004. The foundation was financed by Flagship Ventures, the Bollard Group and private investors. At IAC, Tripadvisor became part of the travel company Expedia , which was floated on the stock exchange as an independent company in August 2005. In December 2011, the TripAdvisor media group was spun off from Expedia Inc. in which the shareholders received a new Expedia share and a new share from TripAdvisor for an old Expedia share. Tripadvisor, Inc. has been listed as a separate company on the NASDAQ Global Select Stock Exchange since December 21, 2011 under the symbol "TRIP".

In addition to its own website, TripAdvisor also operates websites under 24 other brands , only a few of which offer a German site. Including: AirfareWatchdog, BookingBuddy, Citymaps, CruiseCritic, Family Vacation Critic, FlipKey, GateGuru, Holiday Lettings, Holiday Watchdog, HouseTrip, Independent Traveler, Jetsetter, TheFork (lafourchette, eltenedor, iens, BestTables, Dimmi), Niumba, Onetime, Oyster, SeatGuru, SmarterTravel, Tingo, TravelPod, Tripbod, VacationHomeRentals, Viator, VirtualTourist.

The company operates websites under the TripAdvisor brand internationally in many languages ​​and countries including Australia, Belgium, Brazil, China, Germany, Denmark, France, Finland, Greece, Great Britain, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, USA, Vietnam.

use

According to its own information, the site has over 450 million visitors per month and a total of more than 661 million reviews, respectively. Experience reports on 7.7 million accommodations, restaurants and sights on their pages. 32 million photos are included in the experience reports, there are almost 80 million members who can be contacted. Since TripAdvisor's experience reports are also integrated on other sites via widgets, the TripAdvisor content is read by significantly more people.

TripAdvisor's advertisers include online travel agencies such as Expedia, Hotels.com , Orbitz, Hotwire, Priceline and Travelocity or IHG , Hotel.de , Hyatt and American Airlines . In addition to TripAdvisor, 24 other travel brands are operated.

Ratings (articles) created by members can no longer be changed or corrected after they have been published; translations into other than the source language are carried out automatically. Experience reports and photos can be rated by users and visitors. Depending on the number of contributions, photo uploads and ratings, members have been classified in one of six “contribution levels” since 2015. In addition, the number of reviews and ratings are displayed in the profile via badges .

criticism

In 2015, the Italian newspaper Italia a Tavola managed to register a nonexistent restaurant on TripAdvisor. This restaurant was then rated so many and well that after a month it was listed as the best restaurant in town. The daily concluded from this that there were serious gaps in TripAdvisor's rating system. TripAdvisor denied this claim, arguing that the listing had already been recognized internally as a fake . In addition, this experiment does not show that TripAdvisor's rating system is flawed, as it was an attempt at deception that one would not expect.

In December 2018, the Italian authorities fined TripAdvisor € 500,000 after ruling that they had not put in place enough mechanisms to protect consumers from false reviews.

The international animal welfare organization World Animal Protection criticizes TripAdvisor and the company Viator, which was acquired by TripAdvisor in 2014, for selling tickets to attractions such as elephant rides or shark cage diving, as these are said to be associated with animal cruelty . After further protests, TripAdvisor stopped selling such tickets in 2016. As part of this, TripAdvisor launched a new booking and training policy designed to help improve animal health and safety standards, especially in regions and businesses with limited regulatory protection.

There have also been complaints about deleted reviews relating to rape in Mexican hotels. TripAdvisor then apologized and restored a post from 2010 in 2017. The company said the post violated the rules for comments at the time, which is why it was deleted. However, a system subsequently introduced by TripAdvisor to flag hotels in which such declines had occurred also turned out to be problematic, as TripAdvisor only flagged hotels for which there were no comments indicating acute deficiencies. However, this identification only lasts for three months and is then deleted again. However, the marking can remain in place if the defect persists. However, this system is not intended to punish hotels or other facilities, but primarily serves as information for users.

Awards

In April 2019, TripAdvisor was named America's Best Midsize Employer 2019 by Forbes .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d TripAdvisor Inc. - Fact Sheet. In: tripadvisor.com. TripAdvisor, 2016, accessed January 3, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Expedia, Inc. Completes Spin-off of TripAdvisor, Inc. Press Release, December 20, 2011 (English)
  3. ↑ TripAdvisor Reports Second Quarter 2018 Financial Results from August 1, 2018
  4. ↑ Kevin May: Three times more people view TripAdvisor reviews on sites other than TripAdvisor. In: tnooz.com , June 1, 2011 (English).
  5. ↑ TripAdvisor, Inc. - Company's About TripAdvisor About page, accessed December 24, 2016.
  6. ↑ a b TripAdvisor denies rating system is flawed, after fake restaurant tops rankings in Italy. June 30, 2015, accessed June 2, 2019 .
  7. ^ Rachael Bale: TripAdvisor Accused of Promoting Cruel Animal Attractions. In: news.nationalgeographic.com. May 19, 2016. Retrieved September 9, 2017 .
  8. ↑ TripAdvisor Halts Ticket Sales to Cruel Wildlife Attractions. October 12, 2016, accessed June 2, 2019 .
  9. ↑ reisereporter, Hannover, Niedersachsen, Germany: TripAdvisor warns of sexual abuse in hotels. Retrieved November 9, 2017 .
  10. ↑ TripAdvisor Apologizes for Deleting Review Detailing Rape at Mexican Resort. November 2, 2017, accessed June 2, 2019 .
  11. ↑ TripAdvisor's Sexual Assault Warning System Isn't Much Of A System. December 19, 2017, accessed June 2, 2019 .
  12. ↑ TripAdvisor Icon Will Identify Hotels Where Sexual Assault Occurred. November 8, 2017, accessed June 2, 2019 .
  13. ↑ Forbes: America's Best Midsize Employers 2019. April 17, 2019, accessed June 2, 2019 .

Coordinates: 42 ° 17 '52.4 "  N , 71 ° 13' 9.5"  W.