TripAdvisor on what it is like to be out from under Expedia’s wing

January 10, 2012 | Online Travel

TripAdvisor's Stephen Kaufer talked to AllThingsD about being an independently traded company, and about the media company’s prospects for growth in vacation rentals, mobile, social and geographic expansion, and of course Google Travel.

Stephen Kaufer on Google moving into travel:

They have a couple of different approaches. They have Google Places, which reviews everything; and they have Google Hotels, which is a hotel finder; and then Google Flights, to help you find the best fare.

With Google Places, they still can’t seem to generate enough high-quality reviews to be useful. They compete with Yelp and us, and I’ve yet to be concerned. I was concerned about Google Flights — a lot — before they launched, but you cannot book through an online travel agent like Expedia — only directly through the airlines for now.

It’s an incomplete product, so I still use TripAdvisor flights, or go to Expedia or Orbitz. They get better results, and maybe aren’t as fast, but more information is still better.

They say they want to include online travel agents, but the airlines won’t let them. … Don’t mistake my tone for being sympathetic to Google on this one.

Get the full story at AllThingsD

E-Mail Newsletter


Visit our sponsors: