Tripadvisor's Metasearch Business Faces Direct Competition From Artificial Intelligence

In late 2025, Tripadvisor announced it would allocate more resources to its leading experiences and restaurant businesses that we think holds moaty characteristics rather than its lagging hotel metasearch business that we believe does not have a competitive advantage. We see this shift in focus as prudent and in line with our long-held view that the company's metasearch platform (where barriers to entry are lower than in online travel agency bookings) faces growing competition from mass market artificial intelligence search products. We believe this competition will keep marketing costs elevated and cause its hotel-branded business to lose revenue share, blocking it from holding a network advantage during the next 10 years. To this point, in the third quarter, Tripadvisor’s metasearch business remained soft, with revenue decreasing 8%.