TripAdvisor and Expedia bosses worried about Google's travel business

TripAdvisor and Expedia Group's CEOs have had separate talks centered around the increase in Google's directing of search traffic towards its own travel service and how its impacted their own companies in the third quarter.

For its part, Expedia Group intends to push direct booking — it mentioned fledgling Instagram and Facebook influencer campaigns, as well as spending more on brand advertising — and bolster its loyalty programs. TripAdvisor plans cost-containment, to build hotel and media products that aren’t based on click-based revenue, and to ramp up personalization efforts.

In prepared remarks Wednesday night, TripAdvisor addressed the fact that the revenue in  the largest part of its business, officially known as Hotels, Media & Platform, declined 12 percent year over year in the third quarter to $238 million.

“We believe our most significant challenge remains Google pushing its own hotel products in search results and siphoning off quality traffic that would otherwise find TripAdvisor via free links and generate high-margin revenue in our hotel click-based auction,” TripAdvisor stated.

In an earnings call with analysts, TripAdvisor CEO Steve Kaufer expanded on the theme. Kaufer said TripAdvisor saw “incremental SEO (Search Engine Optimization, i.e. Google) headwinds over the course of the quarter.”

“And I think you’re seeing this across the industry as Google has gotten more aggressive,” he said, adding “we know that this SEO piece is an ongoing trend, and we’re not predicting that this is going to turn around.”

Despite upbeat news about a new TripAdvisor joint venture with Trip.com Group in China, TripAdvisor stated:

“We are dissatisfied with our Q3 results, which are particularly frustrating because we entered 2019 with such great momentum built on strong profit growth, improving auction trends, and a return to sustained Hotel revenue growth seemingly well within our sights.”

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