Tripadvisor Launches Premium Trip-Planning Service Reco

Tripadvisor is hiring, well, trip advisers. The travel and recommendation site quietly launched what it's calling Reco, a platform that matches travelers who'd rather not flip through Tripadvisor's entire portfolio of hospitality brands, restaurants and destinations with a personalized "trip designer." [article_summary section="2"]This comes during an obviously tough time for the travel industry, which has been decimated due to Covid-19 lockdowns. But Tripadvisor, now in its 20th year, is still rolling out new updates and products, as well as a new campaign—all planned before the pandemic—that will be crucial in helping to capitalize on the recovery cycle. For a $199 fee, travelers on Reco (which is still in beta testing mode) can search a destination, offer their budget, and list any activities and interests. They're then matched with a travel adviser (the platform has hired "a few hundred") who will begin planning the trip with the traveler accordingly. "Their role is to be there for the traveler from start to finish. That's a really important aspect for what they'll do for the traveler when there's so much uncertainty out in the world," said Brad Soroca, who joined Tripadvisor this April as vp of marketing and business development, and is overseeing the Reco brand. When asked why Tripadvisor opted to create a service like Reco, a spokesperson said the two were "different travel planning experiences." The main site is for individual planners, and Reco for the concierge service. [kickout id="1"] 2020 was set to be a transformative year for Tripadvisor [article_summary section="1"]This was supposed to be a big year for Tripadvisor, set for a brand relaunch it had been planning since 2019. Squeezed by Google's own suite of travel services (including a planning product, hotel search feature and ads for travel suppliers), many online travel agencies and metasearch sites have tried to lessen their reliance on the search engine behemoth. “Google has gotten more aggressive. We’ve been predicting this, of course, for the past many years,” Tripadvisor CEO and president Stephen Kaufer told investors after earnings dipped in 2019. “Our focus around the whole Tripadvisor brand is enabling folks and offering many more reasons why they want to come back to Tripadvisor.” In November, as Tripadvisor opened its advertising platform to small and medium-sized businesses, vp of global advertising revenue Christine Maguire told Adweek that diversifying revenue was critical for the brand. Despite the hurdles, in 2019, Tripadvisor still brought in site traffic of roughly 460 million users. If it can convert just a sliver of those users to Reco, it could become a major moneymaker for Tripadvisor during a crucial time. "This is their way to strategically shift away or diversify away from their click revenue stream," said Charuta Fadnis, an svp of research and product strategy at global travel market research firm Phocuswright. "As a consumer, you go to [Tripadvisor] when you had a deep intent to travel. When you have that consumer that's exhibiting deep intent, you need to find a way to monetize it." How the pandemic affected Tripadvisor's plans Then the pandemic happened, virtually halting the travel industry in its tracks. The company laid off nearly 900 employees and saw revenue drop 26% year-over-year, with the worst expected to come. In a financial update to investors delivered at the end of June, the brand announced that although monthly unique users were up in April and May, year-over-year revenue performance was roughly 10% of 2019, with June approaching roughly 20%. Still, Tripadvisor has soldiered on. Without any advertising, the brand is debuting that relaunch, updating and redesigning its website—a sleek, Airbnb-lite look unveiled in May—with features to help travelers plan their trip, such as updated tourism pages for cities with fact sheets and curated content pulled from travel publisher Thrillist. It even added a purchase option for travel insurance. An app update is expected to follow. Soroca declined to provide a timeline for Reco's complete launch—unsurprising given the uncertainty in the travel space. Also planned before the pandemic is a nationwide out-of-home advertising campaign, which the brand is beginning to launch starting in New York this week and following up in Boston and Los Angeles, as well as Chicago's O'Hare Airport and Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. The spots feature the brand's new tagline: "There's Good Out There." The campaign was created alongside the creative agency Mother New York. [kickout id="2"] Soroca declined to comment on the cost of the campaign, saying only that Tripadvisor had "degrees of flexibility" on the ad buy. "Our campaign is the outward manifestation of a lot of work that's going on with the company and a lot of efforts to change the experience on-site. The notion of 'There's Good Out There' has a level of optimism inherent in our brand," he said. "That desire to move and get out, do it safely—we can play an important role in that." Will it work? While a Tripadvisor billboard might puzzle some urban onlookers grateful merely to leave their apartments, the emphasis on transportation hubs like airports harkens back to pre-pandemic times. While TSA traffic has gradually ticked up but over the Fourth of July weekend, traffic is still just a quarter of what it was last year. "Whether I would choose this moment to launch it, and whether billboards are the right medium, those are puzzling moves for sure," said Mario Natarelli, managing partner of brand consultancy MBLM who's worked extensively in the travel industry. Although he considered the tagline "wonderful," he was unsure of Reco's potential. "I think there might be white-glove concierge services for a certain segment of the population. I'm a little skeptical about the scalability," he said. Kaleigh Kirkpatrick is a luxury travel adviser based in Aspen, Colo., who has worked in the industry for four years. As a Reco travel agent, she'll keep $50 of the $199 fee and whatever commissions she makes booking the trip, roughly 10% pretax of the trip's cost, according to Kirkpatrick. Independent of Tripadvisor, Kirkpatrick charges $250 for planning a trip, but Tripadvisor's platform offers a much larger lead generation potential. "These clients wouldn't be coming to me otherwise. It's really aligned with the travel adviser, and I love the fact that they're charging fees," said Kirkpatrick, who appreciates not having to explain to travelers the costs associated with booking a trip. "I don't have to vet them, I can put in parameters, and I don't have to take anybody that's going to spend less than $10,000." A spokesperson with Tripadvisor said demand was high enough to test the beta thoroughly—but Kirkpatrick hasn't yet gotten a lead from the Reco site, although she mostly blames the pandemic. Before Covid-19, Kirkpatrick would get about five or six new client requests a week from Facebook and Instagram. As of today, it's been about two months since she's heard from a new client. While both small businesses like Kirkpatrick's and billion-dollar brands from hotels to cruise lines continue to weather the pandemic with nary an end in sight, Tripadvisor is trying to roll out features to help. So far, the platform has implemented safety filters for businesses and, in April, donated $1 million to Covid-19 relief efforts and launched an initiative urging people to explore the attractions in their own neighborhoods. For now, Reco is a learning experience, according to Soroca. A definite release date won't come until the pandemic's cloud of uncertainty lifts. "How long are we going to be dealing with this? When can we go to Europe again? When's it going to be safe to get on a cruise ship in Alaska? When are Disney and the other parks opening?" he asked. "Those are the things travel agents typically book. We see some of the pent-up demand developing, but it's too early to put a timeline on it."

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To Help Speed Recovery, Tripadvisor Hires Its Own Travel Agents

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