Analysts are divided about whether TripAdvisor is de-emphasizing its Instant Booking initiative, and while the company asserts that Instant Booking remains supported and available, it also acknowledged recently that growth has slowed.
TripAdvisor launched Instant Booking in June 2014 and has since added inventory from multiple hotel and OTA partners.
Perry Gold, an analyst with the MoffettNathanson research firm, said the company has faced issues in recent years in pivoting to Instant Booking.
“They’ve been executing on this plan, or trying to execute on this plan, for three years or so,” Gold said. “And then last quarter, all of a sudden, they abruptly gave up on it. I think, basically, the conversion rates were just not what they needed to be.”
Gold said TripAdvisor “very aggressively” de-emphasized Instant Booking in the last quarter, first on the desktop, then on mobile, only offering the Instant Booking option to customers in “very specific” cases, such as if they had previously used Instant Booking.
Douglas Quinby, senior vice president of research with Phocuswright, said that TripAdvisor has been “signaling this awhile — de-emphasizing Instant Booking and refocusing on metasearch. I think the challenge is conversion, convincing customers that [TripAdvisor] is a booking site, not a review site. … The key question is: How best can they monetize their enormous user base as the marketplace migrates to mobile?”
Brian Hoyt, TripAdvisor’s senior director of corporate communications, said Instant Booking continues to be an option for users, but it will likely appear more prominently for users who have already demonstrated a propensity for using the service.
“We continue to be focused on helping the consumer book the right hotel for them, and should they choose to use our Instant Booking channel, it is available,” he said.
