TripAdvisor 2014 Annual Report Download - page 16

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x 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. To promote an
enthusiastic reviewer community that continues to provide valuable content and promotes our brand, we have launched
several programs to recognize reviewer contributions, including site badges, helpful vote recognition, and other features,
all of which highlight the current and helpful reviews and opinions available throughout the TripAdvisor community.
x Technology and Innovation. Product innovation and speed to market are our two most important priorities in order to
create an increasingly rich user experience. We have weekly engineering releases that contain new products and features
for our websites and mobile apps. Some recent examples of this product innovation include: Just For You, which delivers
users a more personalized hotel shopping experience; Instant Booking, which enables users to complete a hotel
reservation while remaining on the TripAdvisor website; hotel metasearch, which enables users to see real-time
availability and compare prices from hundreds of partner websites, without requiring the user to visit another website; and
TripConnect, which enables independent hoteliers to compete for leads on TripAdvisor. Our ongoing commitment to
innovation also extends to content syndication and review collection partnerships, as we leverage our technology and
content for the benefit of other websites. In addition, we utilize manual and electronic fraud detection in order to maintain
the quality and authenticity of user reviews.
x Global Reach. We are a global company, both through the reach of our portfolio of branded websites and through our in-
market staffing in 20 countries. As of December 31, 2014, we had approximately 1,500 employees based outside of the
United States, representing 54% of our employee population. As of December 31, 2014, we had branded websites in 45
countries and 28 languages, including a local language website in China under the brand daodao.com. We have over
570 million review translations, and are committed to continuing to improve the in-country user experience and the local
content coverage for all of our points-of-sale. We believe that the universally-relevant content and community of our core
TripAdvisor platform and other brands uniquely position us to appeal to travelers throughout the world.
Our Strategy
We leverage significant investments in technology, operations, brand-building, and relationships with advertisers and other
partners to expand our business and enhance our global competitive position. These investments have enabled us to, among other
things, aggregate a large base of consumer reviews, in a variety of languages, across our global platform of our websites. We continue
to focus on the following areas to grow our business:
x Continuing Technology Innovation. We believe our ability to innovate and to provide additional functionality to our
websites and apps across all devices will enable us to continue to deliver an industry-leading user experience. Our
innovation culture supports bringing product enhancements to market at speed. In doing so, we believe that we can
continue to, among other things, grow content, usage, loyalty and engagement, as well as to reinforce our competitive
positioning.
x Expanding Our Social and Personalization Platform. We grow brand awareness and member acquisition on social
media channels, including Facebook, Twitter and other social sharing platforms. We intend to continue to expand our
social integration and personalization efforts as we believe these initiatives help to drive usage, engagement, and content.
Users can share their reviews and ratings with their friends through Facebook Connect and also can publish their
TripAdvisor content to their Facebook timeline. Additionally, our Just For You personalization feature gives users
personalized recommendations based on friends’ reviews and ratings as well as information collected about user
preferences in selecting hotels.
x Improving the Experience. We continue to invest in user experience enhancements that improve the researching,
comparing and booking experience as well as help a user while they are on the trip. We have offered a flight metasearch
product that displays availability and pricing information from multiple sources since 2009, expanding internationally to
38 points of sale as of December 31, 2014. In 2012, we introduced hotel metasearch to our global smartphone traffic and
in June 2013, we completed the process of fully implementing hotel metasearch functionality onto our desktop and tablet
platforms. During 2014 we introduced Instant Booking, to our mobile users. This product feature allows travelers to
complete a hotel reservation, powered by our OTA and hotelier partners, while remaining on the TripAdvisor mobile app.
We continue to integrate this feature onto desktop and tablets. In addition to metasearch and Instant Booking, we continue
to offer and improve features such as user reviews, photos, mapping, and filtering to assist users in finding the right hotel
for their trip.