TRIP
#Sure.
I'll take the first one.
On the economics of the Priceline deal, I ---+ it was certainly a long time coming.
We believe it's a really good deal for Priceline.
Is a really good deal for TripAdvisor.
The economics are such that I am telling everyone we're going full force, rolling this thing out.
We don't disclose the specifics, but you can judge by my actions of accelerating our rollout that is something I think is going to work for the Company economically.
And, hey, Priceline's a really big company.
They are not a short-term vision company either, so they are doing something ---+ well, you should ask them, but I would believe they're doing something that is in their best long-term interests as well.
I'll take the 2016.
As this time of year, we are always in the process of putting together our plans, evaluating, messaging and expectation setting for the following year.
We ---+ Ernst will be here next week, and I will dive right into that exercise.
And I'm sure we'll enlighten you on a February call.
We have given a couple of nuggets on 2016.
One, that we're pulling down ---+ we're pausing TV, but we do expect to invest that into other channels.
Q4, we're also seeing the full year of Instant Booking headwinds.
Which, as the team is working actively to optimize and make that accretive, with every expectation that that would continue into 2016.
And in addition to the monetization headwinds, there is a slight shift in the way revenue is recognized.
So, with the majority of our click-based revenue today, we recognize revenue on click immediately.
As Instant Book becomes a more meaningful amount of revenue, we'll be experiencing a shift because with Instant Book, the majority of our large partners, including The Priceline Group, we will be recognizing revenue on stay.
So there's ---+ there'll be some seasonality and a shift in revenue as that becomes a more meaningful number.
So that's something else to take into consideration in evaluating 2016.
We're the process of doing that ourselves, looking at booking windows and consumer behavior.
And will make an estimate into our 2015 plan.
I ---+ sure.
Thanks for the question.
I will know whether there are any changes in the display or the participation in meta by Priceline Group once they actually ---+ once everything's actually rolled out.
I am not under any impression that it being in Instant Book would change anyone's participation in meta, let alone Priceline Group.
They've always expressed to us, as every client has, that they'd like as many transactions through our platform as possible.
I certainly would encourage you to ask The Priceline Group themselves, but my interpretation would be they are eager for all the traffic that they can get in meta, just like they have been all the years past.
They've been a phenomenal partner for us over many, many years, and they're excited about the new transactions we will be delivering to the Instant Book tab.
It's additive, and I think that's how the discussions have always been based, that it's additive to their thinking of how to maximize their participation in the TripAdvisor channel.
To the second part of the question, which marketing channels are most efficient.
We tend to look for as many marketing channels as we can find that deliver quality traffic and, for the most part, we operate them on a breakeven basis.
We view it as acquiring trial.
What I'm talking about, ROI generating online channels, be it search or retargeting or CPM or any of the other methods of acquiring traffic.
Other marketing channels that we'll be working on offline, so many of them it's nearly impossible to measure.
We do have quite a bit amount of PR.
We do a fair amount of content licensing.
We do a fair amount of other ---+ of engaging in various markets in ---+ by leveraging our B2B or B2C community.
None of those have a direct ROI, but we spend serious dollars in them, and I think that's one of the reasons why, if you are ever traveling, you're likely to see something branded TripAdvisor along the way and the TripAdvisor rating.
And we love all that.
We don't even try to measure the marketing efficiency of those campaigns.
Certainly.
Certainly.
As part of the sign-up process for an independent hotel on the website, there's two commission rates, a 12% and 15%.
And we offer the hotel a guaranteed share of either 25% or 50% share of their, what we call eligible impressions.
So, of the folks visiting their page, basically.
It's part of our sales pitch that, if you sign up, this is what we promise you.
It can ---+ will be a lot more than that, depending on a lot of different factors.
And so going forward, that independent who has signed up, even at a 15% commission, TripAdvisor has ---+ once the booking.com deal is live, as of ---+ even today, with our current OTA partners, we make a choice at runtime that says beyond the share guarantee, do I wish to show ---+ get a room as an OTA for that hotel, or the hotel itself, or Tingo as an OTA for the hotel.
For any particular property, I might already have three or more auction ---+ three or more participants in Instant Book.
We make the decision based on who to show, once the share guarantees have been met, we make the decision based upon what we think is going to be the best answer for the consumer, because that's usually going to be the best answer for TripAdvisor.
What I mean is, we have to evaluate how good the content is, the quality of the room description, because a consumer wants to see that in order to hit the book button.
We also care a lot about the price.
And so whoever has a cheaper price is also going to have a higher conversion rate on our site.
And then finally, the commission does come into play.
You can imagine an extreme of somebody offering to pay the 20 ---+ a ridiculous 20% commission for a property while somebody else is offering to pay a 12%.
If all other things are equal, then TripAdvisor is going to pick the 20% commission.
That maximizes us and does no harm to the consumer because as I said, all the other aspects of the flow were equivalent.
With the current OTAs, with Priceline, with the current brands that we have, with The Priceline Group, with eventually multiple brands from The Priceline Group, I think we'll have quite a choice as to who could fulfill the offer.
And we'll look at it from, mostly, what's the best experience for the consumer and secondarily, who has a good commission to us.
You should interpret that as at the end of the day, that combination is probably going to maximize TripAdvisor's revenue because I care the most about how many people are booking.
And if I make a little bit less commission per booking, but more people convert, we're going to make more money, consumers are going to be happier and that's the win-win math we're looking for.
For the second part of the question, the ---+ if I understand correctly, who gets the benefit of the brand placement in the booking flow.
It's a bit ---+ from our perspective, it's too early to tell.
We just haven't been in the marketplace long enough on enough of our platforms in order to see who might get ---+ and I'm not even sure how carefully I could measure, but I'm not sure who's going to get that second booking.
The second trip, which tends not to happen the next day or even the next week.
So, we want to be very clear with all of our partners and certainly our travelers that it's Getaroom, or that it's booking.com, or that it's Marriot that is powering this transaction.
They're the folks that you are going to go to when you want to make a change.
They're the ---+ Marriott, they're the owner of the property, they can answer the question a lot faster than we can if the traveler has one.
And if it's a second time booking for a similar property, we're certainly okay if that ends up being supplier direct.
Our biggest opportunity is the traveler who comes to our site, enjoys the reviews, sees the room tips, looks at a dozen different candid photos and says, yes, this is the property I'm looking for.
I like the price.
Maybe I go down the Instant Book flow, I select the type of room.
But I'm not ready to book right now.
And the next day, or later in the week, when they are sure they want to take that trip, sure they want to stay in that property, they come back to TripAdvisor to finish the booking.
And if we can close that leak, just that one piece of the ---+ plug the leak, phenomenal huge win on TripAdvisor, even if the partner that powers the transaction, the Marriott, or the Priceline, wins the second booking, because they have a great remarketing or retargeting campaign.
Getting that first booking for us is ---+ obviously I want both, but getting that first booking for us by changing the mindset of the traveler, that's the biggest win that we see over the next couple of years.
You're welcome.
I don't ---+ I wouldn't claim yet that I have an answer as to how we can quickly change consumers' mindsets.
I look back and say, TripAdvisor hasn't really had an awareness issue in most of our markets.
TV does a great job growing awareness, so we see how it's worked for so many other companies.
But the other companies have tended to be at a different awareness stage, different growth stage.
And so we went forward with TV, knowing that it wasn't to move our awareness numbers, but to educate folks on that one could now book on TripAdvisor.
And it's been ---+ we did surveys on the TV and certainly the book message stood out.
But it was harder to see the behavior change on TripAdvisor.
We saw more traffic.
We made more money.
But it was softer to draw the conclusion that it got people to actually complete a transaction to book on TripAdvisor.
So it would be, in my mind, no harm whatsoever in continuing a TV campaign that had the same message or, I like the creative, but the same or different creative.
Nothing wrong with that, couldn't possibly hurt.
But in the judgment call of, is that where we want to push on our branding and marketing for next year, we made the judgment call ---+ because you have to make this one in advance, that said, we're going to pause.
I use the word pause carefully, because I'm not saying we wouldn't change our minds.
We wouldn't do something else in 2017 or maybe even late 2016, but the notion is that's not ---+ it's a big dollar bet, and that's not what we're going to spend those dollars on in 2016.
When we look at it from, wow, you have 100-plus million travelers on the site in a month.
150 million, 175 million.
Surely, that's a big enough sample size to work on the educational message, and recently, we've been doing quite a bit on that.
If you go to the site, many of our devices, not all, you'll see a much stronger you can book on TripAdvisor.
And combined with the appearance of a book on TripAdvisor button, on hundreds of thousands or more properties, plus the global rollout, plus being packaged with some other brand communications, better, different/cheaper than TV, we think that there's ---+ well, as I started ---+ a judgment call, there was nothing wrong with the TV, but we think we can achieve our goals better in terms of training book by spending our time and some of our dollars elsewhere.
Great.
Thank you very much.
Take care, <UN<UNK>>.
Sure.
I ---+ yes.
To the best of my knowledge, the restatement of the hotel shoppers was entirely bot or fake user related.
I do not believe it changed at all the ---+ whether it was a hotel bot or a restaurant bot, they're all hitting us all the time.
I look at the percentage of visitors to TripAdvisor and I still put it at roughly half in the somewhere in the hotel half, some were looking at hotels.
It's a rough approximation.
It is different by device, but I'm trying to give some color on the average.
And there was no change in any de-duping.
There was nothing else under the covers there.
Sure thing.
I ---+ so we ---+ Priceline's been a great partner.
We've been talking to them and every other OTA for quite some time about joining Instant Book.
Many of them have.
Priceline and Expedia were the two notable ones that had declined, and I think Priceline ---+ again, feel free to ask them, but in ongoing discussions, we each made some compromises and we found a common ground that allows them to get obviously what they're looking for out of the relationship, which is a branded experience that makes sure customers know that Priceline is powering the booking.
We are perfectly happy with that.
They get to grow in transactions from our platform.
And we, of course, we get the Instant Book rolling out globally.
We get the improved content from our display and hopefully the improved conversion that comes with it.
We can continue to show other OTAs and other suppliers in our store.
We look forward to the remaining hotel brands joining in Instant Book.
We look forward to having more Instant Book options across the board.
We continue to sign up independent hotels at a decent pace.
We're building our own content management system, as I mentioned, to make sure those properties are represented on our site with excellent content and strong pricing.
And it's like what we've done with meta, we're building a really strong marketplace, globally or lots of different folks, hotels or the intermediaries.
To be able to power the bookings of folks that choose to book on TripAdvisor.
I take the opportunity to talk about Instant Booking and that up and I will always refer to it as Instant Booking and meta - and I will always refer to it as Instant Booking and meta - we love our Instant Book strategy, you've heard me talk about it over and over.
But I don't want anyone to think that meta is going away.
Our messaging of plan, compare, and book plan, the reviews, the content.
That's a great decision-support information that we have in order to help the consumer find exactly where they want to go, where they want to stay, what they want to do to have the great trip.
That's the plan message, the compare is that everyone's looking for the best price.
Showing a price on TripAdvisor and Instant Booking is one of the options and showing the price that is available elsewhere on the web from all the other players, that the traveler's aware of is part of that core compare message.
And we expect to have that compare message for the forever future.
It's just part of our core positioning, and plan, compare and book.
And we want TripAdvisor Instant Booking to offer a great price, terrific content, the trusted brand of TripAdvisor, as to why you should click in, seeing the content and the brand provided by whoever's actually doing ---+ powering the booking for us, the hotel itself or the high quality travel agent, like Priceline or any of the other OTAs that are in the store, and it completes that part of the purchase.
And then the rest of the TripAdvisor value proposition, which we are still very excited about, but we classify into our other businesses.
The attractions and the restaurants and the other ways that are going to make a trip incredibly powerful.
But it's Instant Booking and meta as that core monetization vehicle for hotels; it's restaurants and attractions in other services in the on the trip piece.
It's vacation rental and alternative lodging in general that helps people well.
When a hotel isn't quite what you're looking for, we have these other options.
Whether it be urban inventory that we're sourcing through our vacation rental, standard alternative lodging, like the traditional vacation rental, those were all part of our store.
And it's our job to ---+ our challenge or opportunity to present them at the right time to the travelers that are on our site.
All in all, it's a pretty complete picture.
Doesn't have everything, but when we look at the things that travelers are most interested, we have a real ---+ we would like to think the best offering in the plan space.
We have a great offering in the compare space.
We're learning how to have the best offering in the book space.
We don't have it yet, but we're getting there.
And we have best offering in the in-destination market for attractions and restaurants globally.
It's a pretty good coverage of that life cycle, and I guess the question started with Priceline, and so Priceline really helps us deliver on that book component.
Thanks for the question.
All right.
With that, I think we're a bit out of time so let me say, thank you very much.
We're moving fast.
It we're making great progress on these long-term goals.
And I have to say I'm really fortunate to have a great team on the job.
So to all of our employees throughout the entire TripAdvisor family, thank you again and again for your terrific work, for your hard work, it's showing results.
I'm really proud, and I look forward to updating everyone again on the next quarter.
Thank you.
