According to reports from ComScore Media Metrix, travel community site TripAdvisor has added four travel media businesses to its arsenal. The move will ensure that 5 additional travel community web domains will see its audience grow to more than 24 million visitors per month.
The companies in question are Smarter Travel Media LLC, operator of both smartertravel.com and bookingbuddy.com, SeatGuru.com, TravelPod.com and Travel-Library.com. Terms of the deals are not being disclosed. Stephen Kaufer, founder and CEO of TripAdvisor said: “TripAdvisor has built a very successful media business with user-generated content as our core and returned remarkable revenue growth and best-in-class profit margins.”
In acquiring the four additional companies, Kaufer also added that he expected to apply the lessons learnt over the past seven years with TripAdvisor to aid similar growth to the other brands and active travel communities. Rather than making wholesale changes, the newly acquired companies will continue to operate independently and will be expected to continue to prosper stated Kaufer, “These are strong, profitable standalone businesses, run by talented travel industry experts. Our acquisition strategy is to build on their success, while capitalizing on obvious efficiencies, but not to mess with sites that appeal to travellers and suppliers and advertisers alike.”
The acquired businesses have a combined staff of approximately 50 people and generate the majority of their revenue through graphical and contextual advertising. TripAdvisor has confirmed that there are no short term plans to integrate the business or cut staff numbers.
