Stephen Kaufer, President and CEO of TripAdvisor, co-founded what is now the world's largest travel site in 2000. It boasts 350 million unique visitors per month drawn by 385 million reviews and opinions on 6.6 million attractions, restaurants, accommodations and flights.
Kaufer was in Sydney on Friday for the official launch of TripAdvisor's first Australian office, in Chippendale. More than 260 staff will work under one roof across the parent company and its two recent acquisitions - Viator (the San Francisco-based tour and activity website) and Dimmi (the Australian restaurant booking website).
Traveller caught up with him for a Q and A session.
How has the travel industry, and TripAdvisor's role, changed in the 16 years since you launched it?
"There's been a quite remarkable change. When we travelled 16 years ago it was based on what a travel agent - or better yet, a friend - would suggest. The ability of the average traveller to have a sense of what they were going to get was extremely limited, based on poor and highly biased information. Along comes a company like TripAdvisor with a wealth of independent information provided by millions of other travellers. Combine that with the ability of travellers to book just about anything on line, and it's an era of the wisdom of crowds and Do-It-Yourself travel. Travellers are so much more knowledgable now. Expectations are set, and met."
How often do you stay in hotels?
"I don't travel as much as people might think. I'm probably on the road one week a month. Do I put my opinions on TripAdvisor? Yes. My kids tease me because I take photos of every restaurant, every hotel room and every attraction I visit."
Any favourites you'd care to mention?
"Of the things I've experienced over the past couple of weeks, I can certainly recommend the Mandarin Oriental in Shanghai and the Double 6 Hotel in Bali. If you're into scuba diving, I've just spent several days on the Spirit of Freedom out of Cairns, which was incredible. If I go further back, my screen saver is a picture of a hot air balloon ride over Cappadocia I did in Turkey. As for a restaurant, my home town of Boston has a fantastic local restaurant, Sweet Basil. It's small, and not very fancy but I have never been disappointed by any meal I've had there."
Do Australians use TripAdvisor differently to other markets?
"They do actually. As is well known, Australian travellers love sharing their experiences, and they go on tremendous trips around the world. When we looked specifically at Australian users, we saw their reviews of attractions and restaurants had grown by over 60 per cent in the past year alone. Domestically, we see Australians contributing more reviews on food and restaurant than anything else. As we know, Australia is known for its foodie culture."
How have Uber and AirBnB changed TripAdvisor?
"TripAdvisor has grown from just hotel reviews into the rental space over the past five or six years. We now have over 700,000 rentals available on the site. We help the traveller find the right place to stay for their needs. That could be an inexpensive hotel, a hostel, a B & B, a three bedroom rental for the entire family, or a spare bedroom rented on a night by night basis. All of those are good logical alternatives depending on what you want. AirBnB does what it does well, and Uber does transportation very well."
The reliability of TripAdvisor's review have been challenged in various jurisdictions. What do you do to ensure the reviews are as genuine and independent as possible?
"There is nothing more important to TripAdvisor as a company than the trust we continue to have from travellers who continue to use the site. If we lose that, we don't have much of a business. From Day One, we have taken a huge interest in maintaining the integrity of our reviews with a dedicated and specialist team focused on combating fraudulent reviews. When we ask travellers whether the information they read before their trip matched their actual experience, we rate in the high 90s percentile. People love the site - and keep coming back."
What innovations do you see TripAdvisor adopting in the future?
TripAdvisor is an incredibly comprehensive site. There are details about everything and everywhere. But there is a large opportunity for a more personalised experience. TripAdvisor can learn more about the needs and interests of individual travellers. There is also an opportunity in speech recognition to enhance the user experience when using their mobiles."
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