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Tripadvisor, Inc. (TRIP)

Q2 2025 Earnings Call· Thu, Aug 7, 2025

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Thank you for standing by. My name is Janice, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to TripAdvisor's Second Quarter 2025 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Angela White, VP of IR. You may begin.

Angela White

Analyst

Thank you, Janice. Good afternoon, and welcome to TripAdvisor's Second Quarter 2025 Financial Results Call. Joining me today are Matt Goldberg, President and CEO; and Mike Noonan, CFO. Earlier this afternoon, we filed and made available our earnings release. In that release, you'll find reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measure discussed on this call. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that this call may contain estimates and other forward-looking statements that represent management's views as of today, August 7, 2025. TripAdvisor disclaims any obligation to update these statements to reflect future events or circumstances. Please refer to our earnings release as well as our filings with the SEC for information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements. With that, I'll turn the call over to Matt.

Matthew Goldberg

Analyst

Thanks, Angela, and good afternoon, everyone. We're pleased with our Q2 performance. Group revenue grew 7% or 5% in constant currency to $529 million at the upper end of our range. Adjusted EBITDA of $107 million or 20% of revenue exceeded our expectations. In a few minutes, Mike will provide more details on our financial performance and our view of the back half of the year. But first, I want to provide some context about where we're heading. We've made progress to transform Tripadvisor Group, as evidenced in the shift in our portfolio mix. Our revenue composition has changed meaningfully and is now majority driven by our growth marketplaces at Viator and TheFork. Over the last 12 months, they represented nearly 60% of our revenue, growing at an 18% CAGR and contributed more than $75 million of adjusted EBITDA versus 2 years ago for the comparable time period, when they represented less than half of our revenue and adjusted EBITDA loss of $61 million. At the same time, at Brand Tripadvisor, we reinforced our core assets even as we navigate long-standing headwinds to our legacy revenue streams. Tripadvisor's trusted brand, content, proprietary data and insights continue to be valuable assets for the group as we address the ongoing needs of travelers in a dynamic and evolving travel ecosystem. As we look ahead, we see an opportunity to build on our momentum by sharpening our focus on experiences, the fastest-growing category in travel. Exploring cultural attractions, local tours and outdoor experiences has become the most important part of the trip. We believe this is a long-term, durable consumer trend, but the category is still fragmented and low awareness. And as a group, we're better positioned than anyone to win in experiences given our highly trusted consumer brands, differentiated product offerings powered…

Michael Noonan

Analyst

Thanks, Matt, and good afternoon. I'll start with a review of our financial performance and later, we'll provide our outlook for Q3 and the full year. As a reminder, all growth rates are relative to the comparable period in 2024, unless noted otherwise. Consolidated revenue in Q2 was in line with expectations at $529 million, a growth of 7% or 5% in constant currency. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA of $107 million or 20% of revenue exceeded expectations, primarily due to more favorable marketing efficiencies at Viator. At Viator, the number of experiences booked grew 15%, in line with expectations for the quarter. We saw stable volume growth sequentially in our largest origin market, North America, and accelerating growth in Europe, reflecting healthy demand. We continue to observe strong volume growth in our third-party points of sale that is outpacing overall segment growth, healthy growth at the Viator point of sale that was relatively in line with overall segment growth and improvements in growth sequentially at the Tripadvisor point of sale. Gross booking value, or GBV, grew 13% or 10% on a constant currency basis to approximately $1.3 billion. Viator revenue grew 11% to $270 million or approximately 9% on a constant currency basis. The difference between the growth in the number of experiences booked and the constant currency revenue growth was primarily due to a higher mix of third-party merchant bookings relative to the second quarter of 2024. Merchant bookings generally have a lower average booking value, which impacts GBV growth relative to volume growth and also have a lower implied take rate, which impacts revenue growth relative to GBV growth. As a reminder, the bookings that come through third-party merchant channels are immediately profitable and are largely sourced from regions outside of our core markets, which enable us to reach…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Richard Clarke of Bernstein.

Richard J. Clarke

Analyst

I guess just firstly, your comments around some of that free traffic headwinds on Brand Tripadvisor and whether this would change your view that 2026 can be the year of stabilization for Brand Tripadvisor given those headwinds? And then if I can offer a follow- up as well, just any comments on your 2 new shareholders, levels of engagement, anything you've sort of received from them or your openness to engage in discussions with those 2 new shareholders?

Michael Noonan

Analyst

Richard, it's Mike. I'll take the first one, let Matt take the second. Yes, I think as we sit here today and as we've talked this year about returning Tripadvisor to growth and reflecting the headwinds in the free traffic. I'd say, certainly, as we sit here today, some of the free traffic headwinds has persisted. I don't think we are necessarily -- it's too early to call 2026 because we are excited about continuing the work we're doing, particularly in the experience side as we just reviewed. And that's the work we're underway now. So again, I think we are acknowledging maybe things are a bit different than we sat at the beginning of the year, but look forward to doing the work and thinking about how we improve operational efficiencies as we look to our planning, which we are in the middle of right now.

Matthew Goldberg

Analyst

Yes, Richard, I'll take that second question. Thanks for asking. As you can appreciate, we can't go into too much detail about who we talk to or what they say to us when it comes to specific shareholders. We value constructive engagement with all of our shareholders and appreciate their feedback. We always listen. And of course, we're totally focused on creating shareholder value and achieving our vision and driving these strategies. So that's about all I can say for now other than what was reported.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Nafeesa Gupta of Bank of America Securities.

Nafeesa Gupta

Analyst

Two questions from me. Could you provide any color on what is your mix between 3P, Viator Origin and Triple Origin for experiences? And my second question is that in your outlook, you mentioned you expect revenue growth to reaccelerate in 4Q for Viator, but it does have tough comps. So what gives the confidence on that reacceleration?

Michael Noonan

Analyst

Yes. It's Mike. I'll take both. I just want to clarify the first question was color on the 3P mix origin mix. Is that correct?

Nafeesa Gupta

Analyst

Yes.

Michael Noonan

Analyst

Yes. Yes. 3P is a diverse channel. It has certainly merchants, which are the OTAs. It has travel agents as well. The growth in 3P channel, as we've said, is being driven by our OTA merchant partners. And listen, this is an important channel for us, as we've said many times. They are scaling fast and they are immediately profitable for us, and they are incremental. And so we do look at incrementality very closely. We see a lot of them are coming outside of our core North American market, which gives us confidence in incrementality. So for us, these are additive to revenue growth. They're also highly accretive to our profitability and are allowing us to continue to invest within experiences, which we have been doing this year. And so an important part of that equation.

Matthew Goldberg

Analyst

And then as you think about that, I would just add a reminder that the significant majority of our revenue is coming from the Viator point of sale first, followed by TripAdvisor and followed by third-party non-TripAdvisor. So just as a reminder. The next question was just about revenue growth in Q4.

Michael Noonan

Analyst

Yes. So revenue growth in Q4, I think when we look at our bookings, which has remained very healthy and the volumes have remained very healthy. We see good bookings that are extending and past Q3 into Q4. understanding it is a tougher comp, but we like where the booking windows are and where those -- the bookings are coming in and the health of our new bookings. So we feel pretty confident about that as we turn to Q4.

Matthew Goldberg

Analyst

And I would just add, of course, I spent a fair amount of time to talk about the opportunity we have between the 2 brands to drive meaningful uplift in revenue working together across marketing, product, supply, data, leveraging AI. And we saw some good early test results in Q2, and we see an opportunity to extend that into the back half and really get some momentum in some of those other areas beyond just the marketing efficiencies that I mentioned. So excited about how that's going to drive our performance as well.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is coming from the line of Vince Ciepiel of Cleveland Research Company.

Vince Charles Ciepiel

Analyst

I was curious if you could talk a little bit more on the changes with the app recently. Maybe remind us kind of what percent of Brand Tripadvisor traffic comes from the app and how the approach to monetization is changing there? And if there's a thought to roll this out to other geographies and maybe the timeline associated with that.

Matthew Goldberg

Analyst

And are you speaking specifically about the TripAdvisor app right now? Is that what you wanted to cover, Vince?

Vince Charles Ciepiel

Analyst

Yes, please.

Matthew Goldberg

Analyst

Great. Yes. So we're really excited about the work that we're doing in the TripAdvisor app. Obviously, it's helpful that we can get customers there to be direct with us, engage with us, plan with us, contribute. And while we don't break out the actual percentage as a total -- as a function of the total, we are seeing growth there really strong. And so app users and members using the app are both growing. What we've done with the app, and we did this last quarter, we actually made meaningful improvements. It was a relaunch that really focused on being the world's best travel companion. So a kind of app companion that has data and truly understands who's coming, that offers smart, personalized recommendations that are more relevant and in context, where you can kind of plan and book effortlessly. We've reimagined how the map can be a lens onto what's around you for things you might want to do and change, as maybe the weather changes or your plans change. And we think we can deliver significant value, both planning ahead of the trip and throughout the trip. And so that also would bring back users to then guide others. And now we're adding a rewards program in the app, which just launched as our free membership that I talked about earlier. And of course, rolling out in-app hotel bookings where we're actually seeing some good activity and driving good response and conversion. And so together, these things, we think will be meaningful. As you said, we're in the U.S., but we think we'll roll that out further over time. And I think between navigation, onboarding flow, the way we're conceiving of the home screen to be highly contextualized and then, of course, being AI native so that the AI review summaries come to the surface that there's an AI trip builder that's integrated in the onboarding workflow. And of course, our AI travel assistant coming into the app for a more intuitive experience, all of this, we think, can work together to have a meaningful impact. And we've seen some good early indicators. We've also supported it with a modest marketing campaign around planning in the app, which was successful and has driven some downloads and some engagement at a really good ROAS. And we expect that this is going to have an opportunity to grow over time. And again, as it scales, reduces our dependence on paid media and drives a really good ARPU of those users who are using our trip planning in our app. So we're enthusiastic about it, and I think you'll see us doing more with it over time.

Vince Charles Ciepiel

Analyst

Great. That's really helpful there. And then I know the full year revenue growth guidance was reaffirmed of 5% to 7%. Just curious in the last 90 days, any change to maybe how Brand Trip versus Viator contributes to the full year company revenue guidance. I think at one point, Brand Trip was expected to be down low singles for the year and Viator grow low to mid-teens. Curious if that's still the case or if there's been any shift in either there?

Michael Noonan

Analyst

Yes, Vince, I'll take that. I would say for our full guide this year that we provided at the beginning of the year, a couple of things. One, as you would expect, we provide that guide with some degree of prudence. I'd say our first half of the year, we saw pretty good performance. We did not raise guide on our last call, largely due to the macro that was upon us at the time. I think as we sit here today, there's definitely puts and takes around the back half of the year. I just mentioned we have at TripAdvisor a bit more probably traffic -- free traffic pressure than we had at the beginning of the year. And listen, I would say at Viator, we're still seeing very strong bookings growth. The flow-through to revenue is a little less in terms of that mix because of the third party as well as some of the cancel rate trends we've been seeing this year. But with that being said, still very strong performance. So these factors are incorporated in our reaffirmation. And as we sit here today, still feel good about that range.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. I will now turn the call back over to Matt Goldberg, CEO, for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Matthew Goldberg

Analyst

Thank you all for joining us on today's call. We're looking forward to the back half of the year. And I just want to say we're really pleased with the work our teams are doing to position us for the future. And I just want to thank them for their tireless efforts to drive our momentum. Look forward to the next update. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

That concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.