TripAdvisor 2011 Annual Report Download - page 10

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Table of Contents
with the goal of providing an online resource based on user generated content to prospective travelers. By using the power of the Internet to
create transparency in the travel planning process with a comprehensive online resource for travel information, we have democratized the travel
research and planning process. For any customer with access to the Internet, we provide the ability and information to plan and have the perfect
trip.
In order to achieve our goals, we leverage our critical assets—a robust community of users, rich user-generated content, technology and a
commitment to continuous innovation and global reach, as follows:
6
•
Robust Community of Users
. TripAdvisor
-
branded sites offer benefits to our many constituents, the totality of which combine to
create a vibrant community. By providing an interactive forum to share travel experiences, we allow the voice of our large, highly
engaged community of travelers to influence travel purchase decision-making during the trip-planning phase. To ease planning, we
enable consumers to research pricing and availability from third-
party travel booking sites once they have identified the right hotel or
destination for their travel needs. To facilitate better travel experiences for consumers and to create a feedback loop between the
hospitality industry and individual travelers, we allow hospitality management representatives to respond to reviews of their
properties on our website. We believe that the robust feedback loop created on TripAdvisor-branded websites and the volume of
reviews generated on TripAdvisor-branded websites provides a sustainable advantage over competitors. We believe that we have the
largest breadth of content in our markets, and that, because of this breadth, travelers gravitate to TripAdvisor-branded websites to
research their travel plans. After completing their trip, consumers can return to our websites to write reviews to give back to the
community that helped them plan their trip. Through this cycle, more content is generated, which drives community, traffic, loyalty
and higher search engine rankings, all of which leads to further content creation.
•
Rich User
-
Generated Content.
We believe that the best travel content comes from the wisdom and insight of a robust community of
travelers. We leverage user-generated content to power travel planning by allowing members to create reviews and share opinions on
hundreds of thousands of accommodations, destinations, attractions and restaurants. As evidenced by the growth of our business, this
type of travel planning has been embraced by travelers. For example, in July 2006, we hosted more than 5 million user reviews and
opinions with respect to approximately 220,000 hotels and attractions. Currently, TripAdvisor-branded websites provide consumers
with over 60 million user reviews and opinions with respect to more than 550,000 hotels and accommodations and over 900,000
restaurants and attractions. On average, our users are currently adding more than 40 pieces of content every minute. To promote an
enthusiastic reviewer community, we have launched several programs to recognize reviewer contributions, including site badges,
helpful vote recognition, and other community-focused features, all of which highlight the active and helpful reviews and opinions
available throughout the TripAdvisor community.
•
Technology and Innovation
. We focus heavily on speed
-
to
-
market and product innovation in order to create a richer experience for
travelers, and our team deploys weekly engineering releases with new products and features. Some recent examples of this
innovation include our Instant Personalization integration with Facebook, which allows travelers to benefit from the experiences of
friends by highlighting reviews and creating an interactive social map featuring destinations visited; creating review summarization
tools to facilitate easier consumption of review content; and adding comprehensive flight metasearch and ratings in international
points of sale. We are also investing heavily in the rapidly growing mobile channel, developing industry-leading mobile websites as
well as tablet and smartphone applications that are currently available in 20 languages. Our innovation also extends to content
syndication, as we leverage our technology and content for the benefit of other websites. In addition, we expend significant efforts
with respect to manual and electronic fraud detection in order to maintain the quality and authenticity of user reviews, and have clear
posting guidelines for user content submission.