UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

 

Form 10-K

 

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2017

OR

For the transition period from          to          

Commission file number: 001-35362

 

TRIPADVISOR, INC.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

 

 

400 1^st Avenue

Needham, MA 02494

(Address of principal executive office) (Zip Code)

Registrant’s telephone number, including area code:

(781) 800-5000

 

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

 

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None

 

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act.    Yes  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act.    Yes  ☐    No  ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.    Yes  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Website, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§ 232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files).    Yes  ☒    No  ☐

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K.  ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act. 

 

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act).    Yes  ☐    No  ☒

The aggregate market value of the common stock of the registrant held by non-affiliates of the registrant as of the last business day of the registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter was $4,096,061,843 based on the closing price on The NASDAQ Global Select Market on such date. For the purpose of the foregoing calculation only, all directors and executive officers of the registrant are assumed to be affiliates of the registrant.

 

 

Documents Incorporated by Reference

The registrant intends to file a proxy statement pursuant to Regulation 14A not later than 120 days after the close of the fiscal year ended December 31, 2017. Portions of such proxy statement are incorporated by reference into Part III of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

 

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We refer to TripAdvisor, Inc. and our wholly-owned subsidiaries as “TripAdvisor,” “the Company,” “us,” “we” and “our” in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

 

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains “forward-looking statements” that involve risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions that, if they never materialize or prove incorrect, could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The statements contained in this Annual Report that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Securities Act, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act. The following words, when used, are intended to identify forward-looking statements: “anticipate,” “believe,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “may,” “might,” “plan,” “project,” “result” “should,” “will,” and similar expressions which do not relate solely to historical matters. We caution investors that any forward-looking statements in this report, or which management may make orally or in writing from time to time, are based on management’s beliefs and on assumptions made by, and information currently available to, management. Such statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions and are not guarantees of future performance, which may be affected by known and unknown risks, trends, uncertainties and factors that are beyond our control. Some of the risks and uncertainties that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements are more fully described in Part I. Item 1A. "Risk Factors". Moreover, we operate in a rapidly changing environment. New risk factors emerge from time to time and it is not possible for management to predict all such risk factors, nor can we assess the impact of all such risk factors on our business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. We caution you that, while forward-looking statements reflect our good faith beliefs when we make them, they are not guarantees of future performance and are impacted by actual events when they occur after we make such statements. We expressly disclaim any responsibility to update our forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Investors should also refer to our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q for future periods and current reports on Form 8-K as we file them with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC, and to other materials we may furnish to the public from time to time through Current Reports on Form 8-K or otherwise.

 

 

 

 

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PART I

 

Overview

TripAdvisor is an online travel company and our mission is to help people around the world to plan, book and experience the perfect trip. We seek to achieve our mission by providing users and travel partners a global platform about destinations, accommodations, activities and attractions, and restaurants that includes rich user-generated content, price comparison tools and online reservation and related services.

TripAdvisor, Inc., by and through its subsidiaries, owns and operates a portfolio of leading online travel brands. Our flagship brand, TripAdvisor, is the world’s largest travel site based on monthly unique visitors, with 455 million average monthly unique visitors in our seasonal peak during the year ended December 31, 2017, according to our internal log files.

Our TripAdvisor-branded websites include tripadvisor.com in the United States and localized versions of the TripAdvisor website in 48 markets and 28 languages worldwide. TripAdvisor features approximately 600 million reviews and opinions on approximately 7.5 million places to stay, places to eat and things to do – including approximately 1.2 million hotels, inns, B&Bs and specialty lodging, 750,000 vacation rentals, 4.6 million restaurants and 915,000 activities and attractions worldwide. We also enable users to compare prices and/or book a number of these travel experiences on either a TripAdvisor site or mobile app, or on the site or app of one of our travel partners.

In addition to the flagship TripAdvisor brand, we manage and operate the following 20 other travel media brands, connected by the common goal of providing users the most comprehensive travel-planning and trip-taking resources in the travel industry: www.airfarewatchdog.com, www.bookingbuddy.com, www.citymaps.com, www.cruisecritic.com, www.familyvacationcritic.com, www.flipkey.com, www.thefork.com (including www.lafourchette.com, www.eltenedor.com, www.iens.nl, and www.dimmi.com.au), www.gateguru.com, www.holidaylettings.co.uk, www.holidaywatchdog.com, www.housetrip.com, www.jetsetter.com, www.niumba.com, www.onetime.com, www.oyster.com, www.seatguru.com, www.smartertravel.com, www.tingo.com, www.vacationhomerentals.com, and www.viator.com.

Our Industry and Market Opportunity

We operate in the global travel industry, focusing exclusively on online travel activity and the online advertising market.

According to Phocuswright, an independent travel, tourism and hospitality research firm, global travel spending is expected to be greater than $1.6 trillion in 2018. Online penetration of global travel bookings currently is estimated to be less than 50%, however, travel bookings continue to move online as consumers around the world gain access to the internet, including broadband; more users continue to access the internet via mobile devices; and global tourism activity continues to increase, driven by middle class and economic growth in some parts of the world. In addition, the internet provides greater access to travel research and booking capabilities than offline methods. Given the ongoing consumer trends around online travel media consumption and online travel commerce, we believe travel partners will continue to allocate greater percentages of their marketing budgets to online channels, as they seek to grow their businesses.

Our Business Model

Our businesses help to match demand – users who seek to discover, research, price compare and book the best travel experiences – with supply – our travel partners who provide travel accommodations, travel experiences and travel services, worldwide.

Users

We serve users through our websites and apps and focus on content, selection, price, and convenience. TripAdvisor features approximately 600 million user-generated reviews and opinions across a broad base of global

 

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travel-related businesses, including approximately 1.2 million hotels, inns, B&Bs and specialty lodging, 750,000 vacation rentals, 4.6 million restaurants and 915,000 activities and attractions worldwide. Our content – and the strong global brand we have created since our founding in 2000 – are primary drivers of not only attracting the world’s largest travel audience of 455 million unique monthly visitors but also influencing a significant amount of travel commerce. We are focused on creating the best online experience in travel planning and booking, making it easier for users to research destinations and experiences, to read and contribute user-generated content, compare destinations and businesses based on quality, price and availability, and to complete bookings powered by our travel partners.

Travel Partners

We strive to give users more choice and to help users find the best experiences and the best deals possible and we design our websites to enable our travel partners to be discovered, to advertise and to sell their services. We facilitate transactions between users and travel partners in a number of ways, including by sending referrals to our partners websites, facilitating bookings on behalf of our partners, by serving as the merchant of record – as is often the case in our attractions and vacation rentals businesses – and by offering advertising placements on our websites and mobile apps.

Segments and Products

We manage our business in two reportable segments: Hotel and Non-Hotel. We continue to derive a significant majority of our revenue from our Hotel segment, which accounted for 77%, 80%, and 85%, of our consolidated revenue in the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015, respectively. The Hotel segment includes revenue generated from the following sources:

 

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In recent years, a significant percentage of our user traffic as well as an increasing percentage of our consolidated revenue has come from Non-Hotel products – attractions, restaurants and vacation rentals. These businesses generate revenue in our Non-Hotel segment, which accounted for 23%, 20%, and 15% of our consolidated revenue in the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015, respectively.

Our Long-Term Growth Strategy

          We seek to achieve our mission of helping people around the world plan, book and experience the perfect trip by: leveraging our user-generated content and global brand to attract users to our websites and applications; providing users with the best user experience throughout all phases of the travel journey; deepening our partnerships with travel partners, by providing them with a global platform of advertising opportunities to generate qualified leads and bookings; and investing in technology, product development, marketing, and other strategic areas that we believe can improve our long-term business prospects.

 

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Marketing

We seek to amplify our global brand and raise user awareness and engagement for our expanded product offerings as we aim to attract users to our websites and applications through various channels, including domain direct and various online and offline marketing channels, including search engines (primarily Google), social media, and in more recent years, through television brand advertising. Both our performance advertising expense and brand advertising expense have increased in recent years. During 2017, our total advertising expense was approximately $629 million, primarily related to the use of online search engines (primarily Google), social media, as well as offline marketing, primarily television advertising, as part of our ongoing initiative to attract users to our websites and applications when they are looking to find the best hotel deals before they are ready to book. We intend to continue a strategy of promoting brand awareness through both online and offline advertising efforts, including by expanding brand campaigns into additional markets.

 

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Competition

We compete in rapidly evolving and competitive markets. We face competition for content, users, advertisers, online travel search and price comparison services also known in the industry as hotel metasearch, and online reservations. In the competition to attract users to our platform, we rely on our ability to acquire traffic through offline brand recognition and brand-direct efforts such as online search, email and television. These marketing strategies can be impacted by competitive site content, changes to our website architecture and page designs, changes to search engine ranking algorithms, updates in competitor advertising strategies, or changes to display ordering in search engine results such as preferred placement for internal products offered by search engines.

We compete with different types of companies in the various markets and geographies we participate in, including large and small companies in the travel space as well as broader service providers. More specifically:

As the industry continues to shift towards online travel services and the technology supporting it continues to evolve, we anticipate that the existing competitive landscape will continue to change, new competitors may emerge, and industry consolidation may continue.

Commercial Relationships

We have a number of commercial relationships that are important to the success of our business. Although these relationships are memorialized in agreements, many of these agreements are for limited terms or are terminable at will or on short notice. As a result, we work hard to ensure the mutual success of these relationships.

We have commercial relationships with the majority of the world’s leading OTAs, as well as a variety of other travel partners pursuant to which these companies primarily purchase traveler leads from us, generally on a click-based advertising basis. For the year ended December 31, 2017, our two most significant travel partners were Expedia and Priceline, including certain of their respective brands. For the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015, Expedia (and its subsidiaries) and Priceline (and its subsidiaries), each accounted for more than 10% of our consolidated revenue and together accounted for approximately 43%, 46% and 46% of our consolidated revenue, respectively. Nearly all of this concentration of revenue is recorded in our Hotel segment for these reporting periods.

Operations and Technology

We have assembled a team of highly skilled software engineers, computer scientists, data scientists, network engineers, and systems engineers whose expertise spans a broad range of technical areas, including a wide variety of open source operating systems, databases, languages, analytics, networking, scalable web architecture, operations, and warehousing technologies. We make significant investments in product and feature development, data management, personalization technologies, scalable infrastructures, networking, data warehousing, and search engine technologies.

Our systems infrastructure, web and database servers for TripAdvisor-branded websites are housed at two geographically separate facilities and have multiple communication links as well as continuous monitoring and

 

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engineering support. Each facility is fully self-sufficient and operational with its own hardware, networking, software, and content, and is structured in an active/passive, fully redundant configuration. Substantially all of our software components, data, and content are replicated in multiple datacenters and development centers, as well as being backed up at offsite locations. Our systems are monitored and protected though multiple layers of security. Several of our individual subsidiaries and businesses, including Viator, have their own data infrastructure and technology teams.

Intellectual Property

Our intellectual property, including patents, trademarks, copyrights, domain names, trade dress, proprietary technology and trade secrets, is an important component of our business. We rely on our intellectual property rights in our content, proprietary technology, software code, ratings indexes, databases of reviews and forum content. We have acquired some of our intellectual property rights through licenses and content agreements with third parties and these arrangements may place restrictions on the use of our intellectual property.

We protect our intellectual property by relying on our terms of use, confidentiality agreements and contractual provisions, as well as on international, national, state and common law rights. We protect our brands by pursuing the trademark registration of our core brands, as appropriate, maintaining our trademark portfolio, securing contractual trademark rights protection when appropriate, and relying on common law trademark rights when appropriate. We also register copyrights and domain names as deemed appropriate. Additionally, we protect our trademarks, domain names and copyrights with the use of intellectual property licenses and an enforcement program.

We have considered, and will continue to consider, the appropriateness of filing for patents to protect future inventions, as circumstances may warrant. However, many patents protect only specific inventions and there can be no assurance that others may not create new products or methods that achieve similar results without infringing upon patents owned by us.

Government Regulation

We are subject to a number of United States federal and state and foreign laws and regulations that affect companies conducting business on the internet, many of which are still evolving and being tested in courts, and could be interpreted in ways that could harm our business. These includes laws and regulations regarding user privacy, libel, rights of publicity, data protection, content, intellectual property, distribution, electronic contracts and other communications, consumer protection, taxation, online payment services, competition and protection of minors. In particular, we are subject to United States federal and state and foreign laws regarding privacy and protection of user data. Foreign data protection, privacy, and other laws and regulations are often more restrictive than those in the United States. United States federal and state and foreign laws and regulations are constantly evolving and can be subject to significant change. In addition, the application and interpretation of these laws and regulations is often uncertain, particularly in the new and rapidly-evolving industry in which we operate.

In addition, we provide advertising data and information and conduct marketing activities that are subject to United States federal and state consumer protection laws that regulate unfair and deceptive practices, domestically and internationally. The United States and European Union have begun to adopt legislation that regulates certain aspects of the internet, including online editorial and user-generated content, data privacy, behavioral targeting and online advertising, taxation, and liability for third-party activities. It is impossible to accurately predict whether new taxes or regulations will be imposed on our services, and whether or how we might be affected. Increased regulation of the internet could increase the cost of doing business or otherwise materially adversely affect our business, financial condition or operational results.

We are subject to laws that require protection of user privacy and user data. In our processing of reservations, we receive and store a large volume of personally identifiable data in the United States, Europe and Asia. This data is increasingly subject to laws and regulations in numerous jurisdictions around the world, including the European Union through the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR. The enactment, interpretation and application of these laws is in a state of flux, and the interpretation and application of such laws may vary from country to country.

 

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Corporate History, Equity Ownership and Voting Control

TripAdvisor was co-founded in February 2000 by Stephen Kaufer, our current Chief Executive Officer and President. In April 2004, TripAdvisor was acquired by IAC/InterActiveCorp, or IAC. In August 2005, IAC spun-off its portfolio of travel brands, including TripAdvisor, into a separate newly-formed Delaware corporation called Expedia, Inc., or Expedia. On December 20, 2011 Expedia completed a spin-off of TripAdvisor into a separate publicly-traded Delaware corporation. We refer to this second spin-off transaction as the “Spin-Off.” Following the Spin-Off, on December 21, 2011, TripAdvisor began trading on The NASDAQ Global Select Market, or NASDAQ, as an independent public company under the trading symbol “TRIP.”

On December 11, 2012, Liberty Interactive Corporation, or Liberty, purchased an aggregate of approximately 4.8 million shares of common stock of TripAdvisor from Barry Diller, our former Chairman of the Board of Directors and Senior Executive, and certain of his affiliates. As a result, Liberty beneficially owned approximately 18.2 million shares of our common stock and 12.8 million shares of our Class B common stock.

On August 27, 2014, the entire beneficial ownership of our common stock and Class B common stock held by Liberty was acquired by Liberty TripAdvisor Holdings, Inc., or LTRIP. Simultaneously, Liberty, LTRIP’s former parent company, distributed, by means of a dividend, to the holders of its Liberty Ventures common stock, Liberty’s entire equity interest in LTRIP. We refer to this transaction as the “Liberty Spin-Off”. As a result of the Liberty Spin-Off, effective August 27, 2014, LTRIP became a separate, publicly traded company holding 100% of Liberty’s interest in TripAdvisor. 

As a result of these transactions, as of December 31, 2017, LTRIP beneficially owned approximately 18.2 million shares of our common stock and 12.8 million shares of our Class B common stock, which constitute 14.4% of the outstanding shares of common stock and 100% of the outstanding shares of Class B common stock. Assuming the conversion of all of LTRIP’s shares of Class B common stock into common stock, LTRIP would beneficially own 22.3% of the outstanding common stock. Because each share of Class B common stock generally is entitled to ten votes per share and each share of common stock is entitled to one vote per share, LTRIP may be deemed to beneficially own equity securities representing 57.5% of our voting power.

Financial Information about Segments and Geographic Information

Our reporting structure includes two reportable segments: Hotel and Non-Hotel. Our Non-Hotel reportable segment consists of three operating segments, which includes our Attractions, Restaurants and Vacation Rentals businesses. The segments are determined based on how the chief operating decision maker regularly assesses information and evaluates performance for operating decision-making purposes, including allocation of resources. Financial information related to our two reportable segments and geographic information required herein is contained in “Note 17 — Segment and Geographic Information,” in the notes to our consolidated financial statements in Item 8.

Employees

As of December 31, 2017, we had 3,228 employees. Of these employees, approximately 51% were based in the United States. We believe we have good relationships with our employees, including relationships with employees represented by international works councils or other similar organizations.  

Seasonality

Traveler expenditures in the global travel market tend to follow a seasonal pattern. As such, expenditures by travel partners/advertisers to market to potential travelers and, thereby, our financial performance, or revenue and profits, tend to be seasonal as well. As a result, our financial performance tends to be seasonally highest in the second and third quarters of a year, as it is a key period for leisure travel research and trip-taking, which includes the seasonal peak in traveler hotel and vacation rental stays, and tours and attractions taken, compared to the first and fourth quarters which represent seasonal low points. Further significant shifts in our business mix or adverse economic conditions could result in future seasonal patterns that are different from historical trends.

 

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Additional Information

We maintain a corporate website at ir.tripadvisor.com. Except as explicitly noted, the information on our website, as well as the websites of our various brands and businesses, is not incorporated by reference in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, or in any other filings with, or in any information furnished or submitted to, the SEC.

We make available, free of charge through the Investor Relations section of our website, the reports that we file or furnish with the SEC, press releases, public conference calls and certain webcasts. Investors and others should be aware that we use our investor relations website (http://ir.tripadvisor.com/investor-relations) to announce material financial information to our investors as well as communicate with the public about our company, our results of operations and other information.  

We post our code of business conduct and ethics, which applies to all employees, including all executive officers, senior financial officers and directors, on our corporate website at www.tripadvisor.com. We intend to disclose any waivers of the code of ethics for our executive officers, senior financial officers or directors, on our corporate website.

 

 

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You should consider carefully the risks described below together with all of the other information included in this Annual Report as they may impact our business, results of operations and/or financial condition. The risks and uncertainties described below are not the only ones we face. Additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently believe are immaterial may also impair our business, results of operations or financial condition. If any of the following risks occur, our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flows could be materially adversely affected.

If we are unable to continue to increase visitors to our websites and mobile apps and to cost-effectively convert these visitors into revenue-generating users, our revenue, financial results and business could be harmed.

Our long term success depends on our continued ability to maintain and increase the overall number of visitors flowing through our platforms in a cost effective manner and to engage users throughout the travel planning, booking and trip-taking phases. The primary asset that we use to attract visitors to our websites and convert these visitors into engaged users and bookers is our ability to collect or create, organize and distribute high-quality, commercially valuable content and products that meet users’ specific interests. Our traffic and user engagement could be adversely affected by a number of factors, including but not limited to increased competition, reduced consumer awareness of our brands, declines or inefficiencies in traffic acquisition, and macroeconomic conditions. Certain of our competitors have advertising campaigns expressly designed to drive consumer traffic directly to their websites, and these campaigns may negatively impact traffic to our site. There can be no assurances that we will continue to provide content and products in a manner that meets rapidly changing consumer demand that encourages users to book on our platform and that is cost-effective. Any failure to obtain and manage content and products in a cost-effective manner that will engage users, or any failure to provide content and products that are perceived as useful, reliable and trustworthy, could adversely affect user experiences and their repeat behavior, reduce traffic to our websites and negatively impact our business and financial performance.

We rely on internet search engines and application marketplaces to drive traffic to our platform, certain providers of which offer products and services that compete directly with our products.  If links to our website and applications are not displayed prominently, traffic to our platform could decline and our business would be negatively affected.  

We rely heavily on internet search engines, such as Google, to generate a significant amount of traffic to our websites, principally through the purchase of travel-related keywords (what is also known as search engine marketing, or SEM) as well as through free, or organic, search (what is also known as search engine optimization, or SEO). The number of users we attract from search engines to our platform is due in large part to how and where information from and links to our website are displayed on search engine results pages. The display, including rankings, of unpaid search results can be effected by a number of factors, many of which are not in our control and may change frequently.  Search engines frequently update and change the logic that determines the placement and display of results of a user’s search, such that the purchased or algorithmic placement of links to our websites can be negatively affected. In addition, a search engine could, for competitive or other purposes, alter its search algorithms or results causing our websites to place lower in organic search query results. If a major search engine changes its algorithms in a manner that negatively affects the search engine ranking of our websites or those of our partners, or if competitive dynamics impact the cost or effectiveness of SEO or SEM in a negative manner, our business and financial performance would be adversely affected. Furthermore, our failure to successfully manage our SEO and SEM strategies could result in a substantial decrease in traffic to our websites, as well as increased costs if we were to replace free traffic with paid traffic.

In addition, to the extent that Google or other leading search or metasearch engines that have a significant presence in our key markets, disintermediate OTAs or travel content providers, whether by offering their own comprehensive travel planning or shopping capabilities, or by referring leads to suppliers, other favored partners or themselves directly, there could be a negative effect on search results and traffic to our site, which in turn could have a material adverse impact on our business and financial performance.

 

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We also rely on application marketplaces, such as Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play, to drive downloads of our applications. In the future, Apple, Google or other marketplace operators may make changes to their marketplaces that make access to our products more difficult. For example, Google has entered various aspects of the online travel market, including by establishing a flight metasearch product and a hotel metasearch product as well as reservation functionality. Our applications may receive unfavorable treatment compared to the promotion and placement of competing applications, such as the order in which they appear within marketplaces. Similarly, if problems arise in our relationships with providers of application marketplaces, traffic to our site and our user growth could be harmed.

We derive a substantial portion of our revenue from advertising and any significant reduction in spending by advertisers or redirections of advertising spend could harm our business.

We derive a substantial portion of our revenue from the sale of advertising, primarily through click-based advertising and, to a lesser extent, display-based and subscription-based advertising. We enter into master advertising contracts with our advertising partners.  The agreement terms are generally limited to legal matters, with campaign details governed by insertion orders, and most of these contracts can be terminated by our partners at will or on short notice. Our ability to grow advertising revenue with our existing or new advertising partners is dependent in large part on our ability to generate revenue for them relative to other alternatives. Advertisers will not continue to do business with us if their investment in such advertising does not generate sales leads, customers, bookings, or revenue and profit on a cost-effective basis. Our ability to provide value to our advertising partners depends on a number of factors, including acceptance of online advertising versus more traditional forms of advertising or more effective models, competitiveness of our products, traffic quality, perception of our platform, availability and accuracy of analytics and measurement solutions to demonstrate our value, and macroeconomic conditions, whether in the advertising industry generally, among specific types of marketers or within particular geographies. We cannot guarantee that our current advertisers will fulfill their obligations under existing contracts, continue to advertise beyond the terms of existing contracts or enter into any additional contracts with us.

Click-based advertising revenue accounts for the majority of our advertising revenue. Our CPC pricing for click-based advertising depends, in part, on competition between advertisers. If our large advertisers become less competitive with each other, merge with each other or with our competitors, focus more on per-click profit than on traffic volume, or are able to reduce CPCs, this could have an adverse impact on our click-based advertising revenue which would, in turn, have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We rely on a relatively small number of significant advertising partners and any reduction in spending by or loss of these partners could seriously harm our business.

We derive a substantial portion of our revenue from a relatively small number of advertising partners and rely significantly on our relationships. For example, for the year ended December 31, 2017, our two most significant advertising partners, Expedia and Priceline (and their subsidiaries), accounted for a combined 43% of total revenue. While we enter into master advertising contracts with our partners, as discussed above, and most of these contracts can be terminated by our partners at will or on short notice. If any of our significant advertisers were to cease or significantly curtail advertising on our websites, we could experience a rapid decline in our revenue over a relatively short period of time which would have a material impact on our business.

Our dedication to making the user experience our highest priority may cause us to prioritize rapid innovation and user experience over short-term financial results.

We strive to create the best experience for our users, providing them with the information, research and tools to enable them to plan, book, and experience the perfect trip. We believe that in doing so we will increase our rates of conversion, revenue per hotel shopper and, ultimately, our financial performance over the long-term. We have taken actions in the past and may continue to make decisions in the future that have the effect of reducing our short-term revenue or profitability if we believe that the decisions benefit the overall user experience. For example, we may introduce changes to existing products or new products that direct users away from formats or use cases where we have a proven means of monetization. In addition, our approach of putting users first may negatively impact our

 

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relationship with existing or prospective advertisers. These actions and practices could result in a loss of advertisers, which in turn could harm our results of operations. The short-term reductions in revenue or profitability could be more severe than we anticipate or these decisions may not produce the long-term benefits that we expect, in which case our user growth and engagement, our relationships with users and advertisers, and our business and results of operations could be harmed.

Our business depends on a strong brand and any failure to maintain, protect and enhance our brand would hurt our ability to retain and expand our base of users and advertisers, as well as increase the frequency with which users utilize our products and services.  

We believe that the strength of our brands (particularly the TripAdvisor brand) has contributed significantly to our success.  We also believe that maintaining, protecting and enhancing our brands is critical to expanding our base of users, increasing the frequency with which users utilize our solutions and attracting advertisers and business partners. Our ability to maintain and protect our brand depends, in part, on our ability to maintain consumer trust in our products and in the quality and integrity of the user content and other information found on our platform. We believe that consumers must trust the integrity of our content and that they must believe that our content is reliable as well as useful.  If consumers do not view our reviews to be useful and reliable, they may seek other sources to obtain the information they are looking for and may not return to our platform as often in the future, or at all.  This would negatively impact our ability to attract retain users and advertisers and the frequency with which they use our platform.  We dedicate significant resources to these goals, primarily through our computer algorithms to identify inappropriate or deceptive content removing content from our website that violates our terms of service and, in certain cases, taking legal action against businesses that we believe engage in deceptive practices.  

 

Media, legislative, or regulatory scrutiny of our decisions regarding user privacy, content, advertising, and other issues may adversely affect our reputation and brands. Negative publicity about our company, including our content, technology, business practices or strategic plans, could diminish our reputation and confidence in our brand, thereby negatively affecting the use of our products. For example, certain media outlets have reported that we have improperly filtered or screened reviews, that we have not properly verified reviews, or that we manipulate reviews, ranking and ratings in favor of our advertisers against non-advertisers. We expend significant resources to ensure the integrity of our reviews and to ensure that the most relevant reviews are available to our users; we do not establish rankings and ratings in favor of our advertisers.  Nevertheless, our reputation and brand, the traffic to our platform and our business may suffer from negative publicity about our company or if users otherwise perceive that our content is manipulated or biased.  In addition, regulatory inquiries or investigations require management time and attention and could result in further negative publicity, regardless of their merits or ultimate outcomes.  

In addition, unfavorable publicity regarding, for example, our practices relating to privacy and data protection, product changes, competitive pressures, litigation or regulatory activity, could adversely affect our reputation with our users and our advertisers. Such negative publicity also could have an adverse effect on the size, engagement, and loyalty of our user base and result in decreased revenue, which could adversely affect our business and financial results.

We continue to invest significant time and effort towards educating users about our brand and our product offerings and there can be no assurances that these efforts will be successful.

In an effort to enhance our brand we invest significantly in brand marketing including, but not limited to, television advertising. We expect these investments to continue, and even increase, as a result of a variety of factors, including relatively high levels of advertising spending from competitors, the increasing costs of supporting multiple brands, expansion into new geographies, product positioning where our brands are less well known, and the continued emergence and relative traffic share growth of search engines as destination sites for travelers. We expect to continue our television advertising campaign and to adjust our marketing efforts and spend among the different marketing channels, in each case as we think appropriate based on the relative growth opportunity, the expected returns and the competitive environment in the different segments and businesses in which we operate.

Such efforts may not maintain or enhance consumer awareness of our brands and, even if we are successful in our branding efforts, such efforts may not be cost-effective or as efficient as they have been historically. If we are unable to maintain or enhance consumer awareness of our brands or to generate demand in a cost-effective manner,

 

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it would have a material adverse effect on our business and financial performance. In addition, there are no assurances that these actions will have a positive impact on our marketing efficiencies or operating margins or when the financial benefit expected to result from these efforts will exceed the costs of such efforts.  Furthermore, some of our current and potential competitors have access to significantly greater and more diversified resources than we do, and they may also be able to leverage other aspects of their businesses to enable them to compete more effectively with us.

Consumer adoption and use of mobile phone devices creates new challenges and, if we are unable to operate effectively on mobile phone devices, our business may be adversely affected.  

The number of people who access the internet through mobile phones continues to increase and we anticipate that the rate of use of these devices will continue to grow. A significant percentage of our traffic comes from users accessing our sites on mobile phones and we expect this percentage to continue to increase.  In order to attract and retain engaged users of our mobile platform, the mobile products and services we introduce must be compelling.  In addition, the mobile phones continue to monetize at a significantly lower rate than desktops and tablets and advertising opportunities are more limited on mobile phone devices. Given device sizes and technical limitations of these devices, mobile phone consumers may not be willing to download multiple apps from multiple companies providing similar service and instead prefer to use one or a limited number of apps for their hotel, restaurant and attractions activity. In addition, as new devices and platforms are released, users may begin consuming content in a manner that is more difficult to monetize.

To address these growing user demands, we continue to extend our platform to develop and improve upon our mobile applications and monetization strategies. If we are unable to continue to rapidly innovate and create new, user-friendly and differentiated mobile phone offerings and websites optimized for mobile phone devices and efficiently and effectively advertise and distribute on these platforms, or if our mobile phone offerings are not used by consumers, our future growth and results of operations could be negatively impacted.

Declines or disruptions in the economy in general and travel industry in particular could adversely affect our businesses and financial performance.

Our businesses and financial performance are affected by the health of the global economy generally as well as the travel industry and leisure travel in particular. Sales of travel services tend to decline or grow more slowly during economic downturns and recessions when consumers engage in less discretionary spending, are concerned about unemployment or economic weakness, have reduced access to credit or experience other concerns that reduce their ability or willingness to travel. The global economy may be adversely impacted by unforeseen events beyond our control including incidents of actual or threatened terrorism, regional hostilities or instability, unusual weather patterns, natural disasters, political instability and health concerns (including epidemics or pandemics), defaults on government debt, significant increases in fuel and energy costs, tax increases and other matters that could reduce discretionary spending, tightening of credit markets and further declines in consumer confidence. Decreased travel expenditures could reduce the demand for our services and have a negative impact on our business, working capital and financial performance.  

In addition, the uncertainty of macro-economic factors and their impact on consumer behavior, which may differ across regions, makes it more difficult to forecast industry and consumer trends and the timing and degree of their impact on our markets and business, which in turn could adversely affect our ability to effectively manage our business and adversely affect our results of operations. For example, the United Kingdom’s referendum to exit the European Union, known as Brexit, could adversely affect European and global economic or market conditions, could contribute to instability in global financial markets and may have a negative effect on the travel industry and our business.

 

 

 

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We operate in an increasingly competitive global environment and our failure to compete effectively could reduce our market share and harm our financial performance.

We compete in rapidly evolving and competitive markets. We face competition for content, users, advertisers, online travel search and price comparison services, or what is known in the industry as hotel metasearch, and online reservations. In the competition to attract users to our platform, we rely on our ability to acquire traffic through offline brand recognition and brand-direct efforts such as SEO, SEM, email and television. These marketing strategies can be impacted by competitive site content, changes to our website architecture and page designs, changes to search engine ranking algorithms, updates in competitor advertising strategies, or changes to display ordering in search engine results such as preferred placement for internal products offered by search engines.

We also compete with different types of companies in the various markets and geographies where we participate, including large and small companies in the travel space as well as broader service providers. More specifically:

 

 

Many of our competitors have significantly greater financial, technical, marketing and other resources compared to us and have expertise in developing online commerce and facilitating internet traffic as well as large client bases. They also have the ability to leverage other aspects of their business to enable them to compete more effectively against us. In addition, many of our competitors, including online search companies, continue to expand their voice and artificial intelligence capabilities, which may provide them with a competitive advantage in travel. We cannot assure you that we will be able to compete successfully against our current, emerging and future competitors or on platforms that may emerge, or provide differentiated products and services to our traveler base.  

Certain of the companies we do business with, including some of our click-based advertising partners, are also our competitors. The consolidation of our competitors and partners, including Expedia (through its acquisitions of Orbitz, Travelocity, and HomeAway) and Priceline (through its acquisitions of Kayak and OpenTable), may affect our relative competitiveness and our partner relationships. Competition and consolidation could result in higher traffic acquisition costs, reduced margins on our advertising services, loss of market share, reduced customer traffic to our websites and reduced advertising by travel companies on our websites.

As the industry shifts towards online travel services and the technology supporting it continues to evolve, including platforms such as mobile phone and tablet computing devices, competition is likely to intensify. Competition in our industry may result in pricing pressure, loss of market share or decreased member engagement, any of which could adversely affect our business and financial performance.

We rely on information technology to operate our business and remain competitive, and any failure to adapt to technological developments or industry trends could harm our businesses.

We depend on the use of sophisticated information technologies and systems for, among other things, website and mobile apps, supplier connectivity, communications, reservations, payment processing, procurement, customer

 

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service and fraud prevention. Our future success depends on our ability to continuously improve and upgrade our systems and infrastructure to meet rapidly evolving consumer trends and demands while at the same time maintaining the reliability and integrity of our systems and infrastructure. We may not be able to maintain or replace our existing systems or introduce new technologies and systems as quickly as we would like or in a cost-effective manner. We may not be successful, or as successful as our competitors, in developing technologies and systems that operate effectively across multiple devices and platforms in a way that is appealing to our users.

In addition, the emergence of alternative platforms such as mobile phone and tablet computing devices and the emergence of niche competitors who may be able to optimize products, services or strategies for such platforms will require new investment in technology. New developments in other areas could also make it easier for competition to enter our markets due to lower up-front technology costs. Technology changes, including new devices, services and home assistants, such as Amazon’s Alexa Voice and Google Home, and developing technologies, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, could negatively impact our business.

If we do not continue to innovate and provide tools and services that are useful to travelers, we may not remain competitive, and our business and financial performance could suffer.

Our success depends in part on continued innovation to provide features and services that make our platform compelling to travelers. Our competitors are continually developing innovations in online travel-related services and features. As a result, we are continually working to improve our business model and user experience in order to drive user traffic and conversion rates. We can give no assurances that the changes we make will yield the benefits we expect and will not have unintended or adverse impacts that we did not anticipate. If we are unable to continue offering innovative products and services and quality features that travelers want to use, existing users may become dissatisfied and use competitors’ offerings and we may be unable to attract additional users, which could adversely affect our business and financial performance.

We are dependent upon the quality of traffic in our network to provide value to online advertisers, and any failure in our quality control could have a material adverse effect on the value of our websites to our advertisers and adversely affect our revenue.

We use technology and processes to monitor the quality of the internet traffic that we deliver to online advertisers and have identified metrics to demonstrate the quality of that traffic. These metrics are used to not only identify the value of advertising on our website but also to identify low quality clicks such as non-human processes, including robots, spiders or other software; the mechanical automation of clicking; and other types of invalid clicks or click fraud. Even with such monitoring in place, there is a risk that a certain amount of low-quality traffic, or traffic that online advertisers deem to be invalid, will be delivered to such online advertisers. As a result, we may be required to credit amounts owed to us by our advertisers. Furthermore, low-quality or invalid traffic may be detrimental to our relationships with advertisers, and could adversely affect our advertising pricing and revenue.

We rely on assumptions and estimates and data to calculate certain of our key metrics, and real or perceived inaccuracies in such metrics may harm our reputation and negatively affect our business.

We believe that certain metrics are key to our business, including but not limited to unique visitors, hotel shoppers, and revenue per hotel shopper. As both the industry in which we operate and our business continue to evolve, so too might the metrics by which we evaluate our business. While the calculation of these metrics is based on what we believe to be reasonable estimates, our internal tools are not independently verified by a third party and have a number of limitations and, furthermore, our methodologies for tracking these metrics may change over time. For example, a single person may have multiple accounts or browse the internet on multiple browsers or devices, some users may restrict our ability to accurately identify them across visits, some mobile applications automatically contact our servers for regular updates with no user action, and we are not always able to capture user information on all of our platforms. As such, the calculations of our unique visitors may not accurately reflect the number of people actually visiting our platforms. We continue to improve upon our tools and methodologies to capture data and believe that our current metrics are accurate; however, the improvement of our tools and methodologies could cause inconsistency between current data and previously reported data, which could confuse

 

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investors or lead to questions about the integrity of our data. Also if the internal tools we use to track these metrics under-count or over-count performance or contain algorithm or other technical errors, the data we report may not be accurate. In addition, historically, certain metrics were calculated by independent third parties. Accordingly readers should not place undue reliance on these numbers.

The loss of one or more of our key personnel, or our failure to attract and retain other highly qualified personnel in the future, could harm our business.

Our future success depends upon the continued contributions of our senior corporate management and other key employees. In particular, the contributions of Stephen Kaufer, our co-founder, Chief Executive and President, are critical to our overall management. We cannot ensure that we will be able to retain the services of these individuals, and the loss of one or more of our key personnel could seriously harm our business. We do not maintain any key person life insurance policies.

In addition, competition remains intense for well-qualified employees in certain aspects of our business, including software engineers, developers, product management and development personnel, and other technology professionals. Our continued ability to compete effectively depends on our ability to attract new employees and to retain and motivate existing employees. As a global company, we aim to attract quality employees from all over the world, so any restrictions on travel for professional or personal purposes, such as those put in place in the United States in early 2017, may cause significant disruption to our businesses or negatively affect our ability to attract and retain employees on a global basis. If we do not succeed in attracting well-qualified employees or retaining or motivating existing employees, our business would be adversely affected.

We may be subject to claims that we violated intellectual property rights of others and these claims can be extremely costly to defend and could require us to pay significant damages and limit our ability to operate.

Certain companies in the internet and technology industries that own patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets frequently enter into litigation based on allegations of infringement or other violations of those intellectual property rights in order to extract value from technology companies, such as royalties in connection with grants of licenses. We have received in the past, and expect to receive in the future notices that claim we have misappropriated or misused other parties’ intellectual property rights. Any intellectual property claim against us, regardless of merit, could be time-consuming and expensive to settle or litigate and could divert management’s attention and other resources. These claims also could subject us to significant liability for damages and could result in our having to stop using technology or content found to be in violation of another party’s rights. We might be required or may opt to seek a license for rights to intellectual property held by others, which may not be available on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. Even if a license is available, we could be required to pay significant royalties, which would increase our operating expenses. We may also be required to develop alternative non-infringing technology, or content, which could require significant effort and expense and make us less competitive in the relevant market. Any of these results could harm our business and financial performance.

 

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Acquisitions, investments, significant commercial arrangements and/or new business strategies could disrupt our ongoing business and present new challenges and risks.

Our success will depend, in part, on our ability to expand our product offerings and expand user engagement in order to grow our business in response to changing technologies, user and advertiser demands and competitive pressures. As a result, we have acquired, invested in and/or entered into significant commercial arrangements with a number of new businesses in the past and our future growth may depend, in part, on future acquisitions, investments, commercial arrangements and/or changes in business strategies, any of which could be material to our financial conditions and results of operations. Such endeavors may involve significant risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, the following:

We have recently invested, and may in the future invest, in privately-held companies and these investments are currently accounted for under the cost method accounting. Such investments are inherently risky in that such companies are typically at an early stage of development, may have no or limited revenues, may not be or may never become profitable, may not be able to secure additional funding or their technologies, services or products may not be successfully developed or introduced into the market. Further, our ability to liquidate any such investments is typically dependent upon some liquidity event, such as a public offering or acquisition, since no public market exists for such securities. Valuations of such privately-held companies are inherently complex and uncertain due to the lack of liquid market for the company’s securities. Moreover, we could lose the full amount of any of our investments and any impairment of our investments could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

 

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We cannot assure you that these investments will be successful or that such endeavors will result in the realization of the full benefits of synergies, cost savings, innovation and operational efficiencies that may be possible or that we will achieve these benefits within a reasonable period of time.  

If we fail to manage our growth effectively, our brand, results of operations and business could be harmed.

Over the years, we have experienced rapid growth in some of our business, including through acquisitions of other businesses and in new international markets. We continue to make substantial investments in our technology, product and sales and marketing organizations. This growth places substantial demands on management and our operational infrastructure. In addition, as our business matures, we make periodic changes and adjustments to our organization in response to various internal and external considerations, including market opportunities, the competitive landscape, new and enhanced products and acquisitions. These changes may result in a temporary lack of focus or productivity or otherwise impact our business.

To manage our growth, we may need to improve our operational, financial and management systems and processes which may require significant capital expenditures and allocation of valuable management and employee resources. As we continue to grow, we must effectively integrate, develop and motivate a large number of new employees, including employees in international markets, while maintaining the beneficial aspects of our company culture. If we do not manage the growth of our business and operations effectively, the quality of our platform and efficiency of our operations could suffer, which could harm our brand, results of operations and business.

We are regularly subject to claims, suits, government investigations, and other proceedings that may result in adverse outcomes.

We are regularly subject to claims, suits, government investigations and other proceedings involving competition, intellectual property, privacy and data protection, consumer protection, tax, labor and employment, commercial disputes, content generated by our users, free speech issues, goods and services offered by advertisers or publishers using our platforms, short-term and vacation rentals and other matters. In addition, our businesses face intellectual property litigation that exposes us to the risk of exclusion and cease and desist orders, which could limit our ability to sell products and services.

Such claims, suits, government investigations and proceedings are inherently uncertain and their results cannot be predicted with certainty. Regardless of the outcome, any of these types of legal proceedings can have an adverse impact on us because of legal costs, diversion of management resources, injunctions or damage awards and other factors. Determining reserves for our pending litigation or other legal proceedings is a complex, fact-intensive process that requires significant judgment. It is possible that a resolution of one or more such proceedings could result in substantial fines and penalties that could adversely affect our business, consolidated financial position, results of operations, or cash flows in a particular period. These proceedings could also result in reputational harm, criminal sanctions, consent decrees, or orders preventing us from offering certain features, functionalities, products, or services, requiring a change in our business practices or other field action, or requiring development of non-infringing or otherwise altered products or technologies. Any of these consequences could adversely affect our business and results of operations.

We are a global company that operates in many different jurisdictions and these operations expose us to additional risks, which risks increase as our business continues to expand.

We operate in a number of jurisdictions both inside and outside of the United States and continue to expand our operations both domestically and internationally. Many regions have different economic conditions, languages, currencies, consumer expectations, levels of consumer acceptance and use of the internet for commerce, legislation, regulatory environments (including labors laws and customs), tax laws and levels of political stability. We are subject to associated risks typical of global businesses, including, but not limited to, the following:

•        Compliance with additional laws and regulations, including the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the U.K. Bribery Act (including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR), data

 

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privacy requirements, labor and employment law, laws regarding advertisements and promotions and anti-competition regulations;

•        Diminished ability to legally enforce contractual rights;

•        Increased risk and limits on enforceability of intellectual property rights;

•        Restrictions on repatriation of cash as well as restrictions on investments in operations in certain countries;

•        Financial risk arising from transactions in multiple currencies as well as foreign currency exchange restrictions;

•        Difficulties in managing staff and operations due to distance, time zones, language and cultural differences;

•        Uncertainty regarding liability for services, content and intellectual property rights, including uncertainty as a result of local laws and lack of precedent;

•        Economic or political instability; and

•        Threatened or actual acts of terrorism.

 

A number of countries are actively pursuing changes to their tax laws applicable to corporate multinationals, such as the recently enacted U.S. tax legislation commonly referred to as the U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (the “2017 Tax Act”). Foreign governments may enact tax laws in response to the 2017 Tax Act that could result in further changes to global taxation and materially affect our financial position and results of operations.  

 

The 2017 Tax Act resulted in significant changes to the U.S. corporate income tax system. The 2017 Tax Act requires complex computations to be performed that were not previously required in U.S. tax law, significant judgments to be made in interpretation of the provisions of the 2017 Tax Act and significant estimates in calculations, and the preparation of analysis of information not previously relevant or regularly produced. The U.S. Treasury Department, the IRS and other standard-setting bodies could interpret or issue guidance on how provisions of the 2017 Tax Act will be applied or otherwise administered that is different from our interpretation. As we complete our analysis of the 2017 Tax Act, collect and prepare necessary data, and interpret additional guidance, we may make adjustments to provisional amounts that we have recorded that may materially impact our provision for income taxes in the period in which the adjustments are made.  

Additionally, we continue to accumulate positive cash flows in foreign jurisdictions, which we consider indefinitely reinvested, although we will continue to evaluate the impact of the 2017 Tax Act on our capital deployment within and outside the U.S. The repatriation of such funds for use in the United States, including for corporate purposes such as acquisitions, stock repurchases, dividends or debt refinancings, may result in additional U.S. income tax expense and higher cost for such capital.

A failure to comply with current laws, rules and regulations or changes to such laws, rules and regulations and other legal uncertainties may adversely affect our business or financial performance.

Our business and financial performance could be adversely affected by unfavorable changes in or interpretations of existing laws, rules and regulations or the promulgation of new laws, rules and regulations applicable to us and our business, including those relating to the internet and online commerce, internet advertising, consumer protection, data security and privacy, travel and vacation rental licensing and listing requirements and tax. In some cases, these laws continue to evolve.  

For example, there is, and will likely continue to be, an increasing number of laws and regulations pertaining to the internet and online commerce that may relate to liability for information retrieved from or transmitted over the internet, online editorial and user-generated content, user privacy, data security, behavioral targeting and online advertising, taxation, liability for third-party activities and the quality of products and services. In addition, enforcement authorities continue to rely on their authority under existing consumer protection laws to take action

 

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against companies relating to data privacy and security practices. The growth and development of online commerce may prompt calls for more stringent consumer protection laws and more aggressive enforcement efforts, which may impose additional burdens on online businesses generally.  

Further, our Vacation Rentals business has been and continues to be subject to regulatory developments that affect the vacation rental industry and the ability of competitors like us to list those vacation rentals online. For example, some states and local jurisdictions have fair housing or other laws governing whether and how properties may be rented, which they assert apply to vacation rentals. In addition, many homeowners, condominium and neighborhood associations have adopted or are considering adopting statutes or ordinances that prohibit or restrict property owners and managers from short-term vacation rentals.  

We also have been subject, and we will likely be subject in the future, to inquiries from time to time from regulatory bodies concerning compliance with consumer protection, competition, tax and travel industry-specific laws and regulations. The failure of our businesses to comply with these laws and regulations could result in fines and/or proceedings against us by governmental agencies and/or consumers, which if material, could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Further, if such laws and regulations are not enforced equally against other competitors in a particular market, our compliance with such laws may put us a competitive disadvantage vis-à-vis competitors who do not comply with such requirements.

The promulgation of new laws, rules and regulations, or the new interpretation of existing laws, rules and regulations, in each case that restrict or otherwise unfavorably impact the ability or manner in which we provide services could require us to change certain aspects of our business, operations and commercial relationships to ensure compliance, which could decrease demand for services, reduce revenues, increase costs and/or subject the company to additional liabilities. Unfavorable changes could decrease demand for products and services, limit marketing methods and capabilities, increase costs and/or subject us to additional liabilities. Violations of these laws and regulations could result in finds and/or criminal sanctions against us, our officers or our employees and/or prohibitions on the conduct of our business.  

We cannot be sure that our intellectual property is protected from copying or use by others, including potential competitors.

Our websites rely on content, brands and technology, much of which is proprietary. We protect our proprietary content, brands and technology by relying on a combination of trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, patents and confidentiality agreements. Any misappropriation or violation of our rights could have a material adverse effect on our business. Even with these precautions, it may be possible for another party to copy or otherwise obtain and use our proprietary technology, content or brands without authorization or to develop similar technology, content or brands independently.

Effective intellectual property protection is expensive to develop and maintain, both in terms of initial and ongoing registration requirements and expenses and the costs of defending our rights. In addition, effective intellectual property protection may not be available in every jurisdiction in which our services are made available, and policing unauthorized use of our intellectual property is difficult and expensive. Therefore, in certain jurisdictions, we may be unable to protect our intellectual property adequately against unauthorized third-party copying or use, which could adversely affect our business or ability to compete. We cannot be sure that the steps we have taken will prevent misappropriation or infringement of our intellectual property. Furthermore, we may need to go to court or other tribunals or administrative bodies in order to enforce our intellectual property rights, to protect our trade secrets or to determine the validity and scope of the proprietary rights of others. These proceedings might result in substantial costs and diversion of resources and management attention. Our failure to protect our intellectual property in a cost-effective or effective manner could have a material adverse effect on our business and ability to protect our technology, content and brands.

We currently license from third parties and incorporate the technologies and content into our websites. As we continue to introduce new services that incorporate new technologies and content, we may be required to license additional technology, or content. We cannot be sure that such technology or content will be available on commercially reasonable terms, if at all.

 

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Our processing, storage and use of personal information and other data subjects us to additional laws and regulations and failure to comply with those laws and regulations could give rise to liabilities.

We collect, process, store and transmit data, including personal information, for our users. As a result, we are subject to a variety of laws in the United States and abroad regarding privacy and the storing, sharing, use, processing, disclosure and protection of personal information and other consumer data, the scope of which are changing, subject to differing interpretations, and may be inconsistent between countries or conflict with other rules. In addition, the security of data when engaging in electronic commerce is essential to maintaining consumer and travel service provider confidences in our services. The regulatory framework for privacy issues worldwide is currently in flux and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. Practices regarding the collection, use, storage, transmission and security of personal information by companies operating over the internet have recently come under increased public scrutiny. The U.S. Congress and federal agencies, including the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Commerce, are reviewing the need for greater regulation for the collection and use of information concerning consumer behavior on the internet. Various U.S. courts are also considering the applicability of existing federal and state statutes, including computer trespass and wiretapping laws, to the collection and exchange of information online. In addition, we are subject to GDPR, a new data protection legal framework adopted by the European Union effective in May 2018. These data protection laws and regulations are intended to protect the privacy and security of personal data, including credit card information. Implementation of and compliance with these laws and regulations may be more costly or take longer than we anticipate, or could otherwise affect our business operations.

We strive to comply with all applicable laws, policies, legal obligations and industry codes of conduct relating to privacy and data protection. Any failure or perceived failure by us to comply with our privacy policies, privacy-related obligations to users or other third parties, or privacy-related legal obligations, may result in governmental enforcement actions, litigation or public statements that could harm our reputation and cause our customers and members to lose trust in us, which could have an adverse effect on our business, brand, market share and results of operations.

We have acquired a number of companies over the years and may continue to do so in the future. While we make significant efforts to address any information technology security issues with respect to our acquisitions, we may still inherit such risks when we integrate the acquired businesses.

 

We are subject to payments-related risks and failure to manage those risks may subject us to fines, penalties and additional costs and could have a negative impact on our business. 

 

          We accept payments, both from consumers and advertising partners and suppliers, using a variety of methods, including credit card, debit card, direct debit from a customer’s bank account, and invoicing. For existing and future payment options we offer to our customers, we may become subject to additional regulations and compliance requirements (including obligations to implement enhanced authentication processes that could result in significant costs and reduce the ease of use of our payments products), as well as fraud. For certain payment methods, including credit and debit cards, we pay interchange and other fees, which may increase over time and raise our operating costs and lower profitability. We rely on third parties to provide certain payment methods and payment processing services, including the processing of credit cards and debit cards. In each case, our business could be disrupted, if these companies become unwilling or unable to provide these services to us. We are also subject to payment card association operating rules, including data security rules, certification requirements, and rules governing electronic funds transfers, which could change or be reinterpreted to make it difficult or impossible for us to comply. If we fail to comply with these rules or requirements, or if our data security systems are breached or compromised, we may be liable for card issuing banks’ costs, subject to fines and higher transaction fees, and/or lose our ability to accept credit and debit card payments from our customers, process electronic funds transfers, or facilitate other types of online payments.

        

          We are also subject to a number of other laws and regulations relating to payments, money laundering, international money transfers, privacy and information security, and electronic fund transfers. If we were found to be in violation of applicable laws or regulations, we could be subject to additional requirements and civil and criminal penalties, or forced to cease providing certain services.

 

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Any significant system disruption in or unauthorized access to our computer systems or those of third parties that we utilize, including those relating to cybersecurity or arising from cyberattacks, could result in a loss or degradation of service, unauthorized disclosure of data or theft of intellectual property, could harm our business.

Our reputation and ability to attract, retain and service our users and partners is dependent upon the reliable performance and security of our computer systems and those of third parties we utilize in our operations. Significant interruptions, outages, delays or security breaches in internal systems, systems of third parties that we rely upon, would impair our ability to process transactions or display content and significantly harm our business. A party, whether internal or external, that is able to circumvent our security systems could misappropriate user information or proprietary information or cause significant interruptions in our operations. In the past, we have experienced cyberattacks, such as computer viruses, security intrusions, “denial-of-service” or “bot” type attacks, that have made portions of our websites unavailable for short periods of time as well as allowed unauthorized access of our systems and data.

We also face risks associated with security breaches affecting third parties conducting business over the internet. Much of our business is conducted with third party marketing affiliates or, more recently, through business partners powering our instant booking feature. A security breach at such third party could be perceived by consumers as a security breach of our systems and could result in negative publicity, damage our reputation, expose us to risk of loss or litigation and possible liability and subject us to regulatory penalties and sanctions. In addition, such third parties may not comply with applicable disclosure requirements, which could expose us to liability.

We may need to expend significant resources to protect against security breaches or to investigate and address problems caused by breaches. Reductions in website availability could cause a loss of substantial business volume during the occurrence of any such incident. Because the techniques used to sabotage security change frequently, often are not recognized until launched against a target and may originate from less regulated and remote areas around the world, we may be unable to proactively address these techniques or to implement adequate preventive measures. Security breaches could result in negative publicity, damage to reputation, exposure to risk of loss or litigation and possible liability due to regulatory penalties and sanctions. Media coverage of data breaches has escalated, in part because of the increased number of enforcement actions, investigations and lawsuits. As this focus and attention on privacy and data protection increases, we also risk exposure to potential liabilities and costs resulting from the compliance with, or any failure to comply with applicable legal requirements, conflicts among these legal requirements or differences in approaches to privacy and security. Security breaches could also cause travelers and potential users to lose confidence in our security, which would have a negative effect on the value of our brand. Failure to adequately protect against attacks or intrusions, whether for our own systems or systems of vendors, could expose us to security breaches that could have an adverse impact on financial performance.

Although we have put measures in place to protect certain portions of our facilities and assets, any of these events could cause system interruption, delays and loss of critical data, and could prevent us from providing content and services to users, travelers and/or third parties for a significant period of time. In addition, remediation may be costly and we may not have adequate insurance to cover such costs. Moreover, the costs of enhancing infrastructure to attain improved stability and redundancy may be time consuming and expensive and may require resources and expertise that are difficult to obtain.

The online short-term and vacation rental market is rapidly evolving and if we fail to predict the manner in which the market develops, our business and prospects may suffer.

We offer short-term and vacation rental services on our TripAdvisor-branded sites as well as through our U.S.-based FlipKey and Vacation Home Rentals and European-based Holiday Lettings and Niumba businesses. The short-term and vacation rental market has been and continues to be, subject to regulatory development globally that affects the industry and the ability of companies like us to list these rental properties online. For example, some states and local jurisdictions, both domestically and internationally, have adopted or are considering statutes or ordinances that prohibit property owners and managers from renting certain properties for fewer than 30 consecutive days or otherwise limit their ability to do so, and other states and local jurisdictions may introduce similar regulations. Some states and local jurisdictions also have fair housing or other laws governing whether and how properties may be rented, which they assert apply to vacation rentals. Many homeowners, condominium and

 

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neighborhood associations have adopted rules that prohibit or restrict short-term vacation rentals. Many of the fundamental statutes and ordinances that impose taxes or other obligations on travel and lodging companies were established before the growth of the internet and e-commerce, which creates a risk of these laws being used in ways not originally intended that could burden property owners and managers or otherwise harm our business. Operating in this dynamic regulatory environment requires significant management attention and financial resources. We cannot assure that our efforts will be successful, and the investment and additional resources required to manage growth will produce the desired levels of revenue or profitability.

We may have future capital needs and may not be able to obtain additional financing on acceptable terms.

We are currently party to a credit agreement with respect to a $1.2 billion revolving credit facility maturing in May 2022, or (as more fully discussed below) the “2015 Credit Facility”. This agreement includes restrictive covenants that may impact the way we manage our business and may limit our ability to secure significant additional financing in the future on favorable terms. Our ability to secure additional financing and satisfy our financial obligations outstanding from time to time will depend upon our future operating performance, which is subject to then prevailing general economic and credit market conditions, including interest rate levels and the availability of credit generally, and financial, business and other factors, many of which are beyond our control. There can be no assurance that sufficient financing will be available on desirable or even any terms to fund investments, acquisitions, stock repurchases, dividends, debt refinancing or extraordinary actions or that counterparties in any such financings would honor their contractual commitments.

We have indebtedness which could adversely affect our business and financial condition.

At December 31, 2017, we have outstanding $230 million in long-term debt. Although we subsequently repaid this indebtedness, we continue to have existing credit facilities from which we can borrow significant amounts; as such, we are still subject to risks relating to our indebtedness that include:

In addition, it is possible that we may need to incur additional indebtedness in the future in the ordinary course of business. The terms of our 2015 Credit Facility allow us to incur additional debt subject to certain limitations; however, there is no assurance that additional financing will be available to us on terms favorable to us, if at all. In addition, if new debt is added to current debt levels, the risks described above could intensify.

 

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Our 2015 Credit Facility provides for various provisions that limit our discretion in the operation of our business and require us to meet financial maintenance tests and other covenants and the failure to comply with their covenants could have a material adverse effect on us.

We are party to a credit agreement providing for our 2015 Credit Facility. The agreements that govern the 2015 Credit Facility contain various covenants, including those that limit our ability to, among other things:

These covenants may limit our ability to optimally operate our business. In addition, our 2015 Credit Facility requires that we meet certain financial tests, including a leverage ratio test. Any failure to comply with the restrictions of our credit facility may result in an event of default under the agreements governing such facilities. Such default may allow the creditors to accelerate the debt incurred thereunder. In addition, lenders may be able to terminate any commitments they had made to supply us with further funds (including periodic rollovers of existing borrowings).

Our effective tax rate is impacted by a number of factors that could have a material impact on our financial results and could increase the volatility of those results.

Due to the global nature of our business, we are subject to income taxes in the United States and other foreign jurisdictions. In the event we incur net income in certain jurisdictions but incur losses in other jurisdictions, we generally cannot offset the income from one jurisdiction with the loss from another. This lack of flexibility increases our effective tax rate. Furthermore, significant judgment is required to calculate our worldwide provision for income taxes and depends on our ability to operate our business in a manner consistent with our corporate structure and intercompany arrangements. In the ordinary course of our business there are many transactions and calculations where the ultimate tax determination is uncertain.

We believe our tax estimates are reasonable. However, we are routinely under audit by federal, state and foreign taxing authorities. The taxing authorities of jurisdictions in which we operate may challenge our methodologies for valuing developed technology or intercompany arrangements, including our transfer pricing, or determine that the manner in which we operate our business does not achieve the intended tax consequences, which would increase our effective tax rate and harm our financial position and results of operations. As we operate in numerous taxing jurisdictions, the application of tax laws can also be subject to diverging and sometimes conflicting interpretations by taxing authorities of these jurisdictions. It is not uncommon for taxing authorities of different countries to have conflicting views, for instance, with respect to, among other things, the manner in which the arm’s length standard is applied for transfer pricing purposes, or with respect to the valuation of intellectual property. The final determination of audits could be materially different from our income tax provisions and accruals and could have a material effect on our financial position, results of operations, or cash flows in the period or periods for which that determination is made.

The income tax effects of the accounting for share-based compensation may significantly impact our effective tax rate. In periods in which our stock price is higher than the grant price of the share-based compensation awards vesting in that period, we will recognize excess tax benefits that will decrease our effective tax rate. In periods in which our stock price is lower than the grant price of the share-based compensation awards vesting in that period, our effective tax rate will increase.

Additionally, we continue to accumulate positive cash flows in foreign jurisdictions, which we consider indefinitely reinvested, although we will continue to evaluate the impact of the 2017 Tax Act on our capital

 

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deployment within and outside the U.S. Any repatriation of funds currently held in foreign jurisdictions may result in higher effective tax rates and incremental cash tax payments.

Changes in tax laws or tax rulings, or the examination of our tax positions, could materially affect our financial position and results of operations.

 

Tax laws are dynamic and subject to change as new laws are passed and new interpretations of the law are issued or applied. Our existing corporate structure and intercompany arrangements have been implemented in a manner we believe is in compliance with current prevailing tax laws. However, the tax benefits that we intend to eventually derive could be undermined due to changing tax laws. A number of countries are actively pursuing changes to their tax laws applicable to corporate multinationals, such as the recently enacted 2017 Tax Act. Foreign governments or U.S. states may enact tax laws in response to the 2017 Tax Act that could result in further changes to global taxation and materially affect our financial position and results of operations.  

 

The 2017 Tax Act has resulted in significant changes to the U.S. corporate income tax system. The 2017 Tax Act requires complex computations to be performed that were not previously required in U.S. tax law, significant judgments to be made in interpretation of the provisions of the 2017 Tax Act and significant estimates in calculations, and the preparation of analysis of information not previously relevant or regularly produced. The U.S. Treasury Department, the IRS and other standard-setting bodies could interpret or issue guidance on how provisions of the 2017 Tax Act will be applied or otherwise administered that is different from our interpretation. As we complete our analysis of the 2017 Tax Act, collect and prepare necessary data, and interpret additional guidance, we may make adjustments to provisional amounts that we have recorded that may materially impact our provision for income taxes in the period in which the adjustments are made.  

In addition, the taxing authorities in the United States and other jurisdictions where we do business regularly examine our income and other tax returns as well as the tax returns of Expedia, our former parent. The ultimate outcome of these examinations (including the IRS audit described below) cannot be predicted with certainty. Should the IRS or other taxing authorities assess additional taxes as a result of examinations, we may be required to record charges to our operations, which could harm our business, operating results and financial condition. 

In connection with the Spin-Off, we could be subject to significant tax liabilities.

Under the Tax Sharing Agreement between us and Expedia entered into in connection with the Spin-Off, we are generally required to indemnify Expedia for any taxes resulting from the Spin-Off (and any related interest, penalties, legal and professional fees, and all costs and damages associated with related stockholder litigation or controversies) to the extent such amounts resulted from (i) any act or failure to act by us described in the covenants in the tax sharing agreement, (ii) any acquisition of our equity securities or assets or those of a member of our group, or (iii) any failure of the representations with respect to us or any member of our group to be true or any breach by us or any member of our group of any covenant, in each case, which is contained in the separation documents or in the documents relating to the IRS private letter ruling and/or the opinion of counsel.

We continue to be responsible for potential tax liabilities in connection with consolidated income tax returns filed with Expedia prior to or in connection with the Spin-Off. By virtue of previously filed consolidated tax returns with Expedia, we are currently under an IRS audit for the 2009, 2010, and short-period 2011 tax years. In connection with that audit, we received, in January 2017, notices of proposed adjustment from the IRS for the 2009 and 2010 tax years, which would result in an increase in our worldwide income tax expense. The proposed adjustments would result in an increase to our worldwide income tax expense in an estimated range totaling $10 million to $14 million for those specific years after consideration of competent authority relief, exclusive of interest and penalties. We are also subject to various ongoing state income tax audits. The outcome of these matters or any other audits could subject us to significant tax liabilities.

 

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We are subject to fluctuation in foreign currency exchange risk.

We conduct a significant and growing portion of our business outside the United States but report our results in U.S. dollars. As a result, we face exposure to movements in foreign currency exchange rates, particularly those related to the Euro, British pound sterling, and Australian dollar. These exposures include, but are not limited to re-measurement of gains and losses from changes in the value of foreign denominated assets and liabilities; translation gains and losses on foreign subsidiary financial results that are translated into U.S. dollars upon consolidation; and planning risk related to changes in exchange rates between the time we prepare our annual and quarterly forecasts and when actual results occur.

Depending on the size of the exposures and the relative movements of exchange rates, if we were to choose not to hedge or were to fail to hedge effectively our exposure, we could experience a material adverse effect on our financial statements and financial condition. As seen in some recent periods, in the event of severe volatility in exchange rates the impact of these exposures can increase, and the impact on results of operations can be more pronounced. In addition, the current environment and the increasingly global nature of our business have made hedging these exposures both more complex. We hedge certain short-term foreign currency exposures with the purchase of forward exchange contracts. These forward exchange contracts only help mitigate the impact of changes in foreign currency rates that occur during the term of the related contract period and carry risks of counter-party failure. There can be no assurance that our forward exchange contracts will have their intended effects.

Significant fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates can affect consumer travel behavior. Volatility in foreign currency exchange rates and its impact on consumer behavior, which may differ across regions, makes it more difficult to forecast industry and consumer trends and the timing and degree of their impact on our markets and business, which in turn could adversely affect our ability to effectively manage our business and adversely affect our results of operations.

Liberty TripAdvisor Holdings, Inc. currently is a controlling stockholder.

Liberty TripAdvisor Holdings, Inc., or LTRIP, effectively controls the outcome of all matters submitted to a vote or for the consent of our stockholders (other than with respect to the election by the holders of our common stock of 25% of the members of our Board of Directors and matters as to which Delaware law requires separate class votes), including but not limited to, corporate transactions such as mergers, business combinations or dispositions of assets, the authorization or issuance of new equity or debt securities and determinations with respect to our business direction and policies. Our Chairman Greg Maffei, and one of our Directors Albert Rosenthaler also serve as officers and directors of LTRIP. LTRIP may have interests that differ from those of our other stockholders and they may vote in a way with which our other stockholders may not agree or that may be adverse to other stockholders’ interests. LTRIP is not restricted from investing in other businesses involving or related to our business. LTRIP’s control of us, as well as the existing provisions of our organizational documents and Delaware law, may discourage or prevent a change of control that might otherwise be beneficial, which may reduce the market price of our common stock.

We are currently relying on the “controlled company” exemption under NASDAQ Stock Market Listing Rules, pursuant to which “controlled companies” are exempt from certain corporate governance requirements otherwise applicable under NASDAQ listing rules.

The NASDAQ Stock Market Listing Rules exempt “controlled companies,” or companies of which more than 50% of the voting power is held by an individual, a group or another company, from certain corporate governance requirements, including those requirements that:

 

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We currently rely on the controlled company exemption for certain of the above requirements. Accordingly, our stockholders will not be afforded the same protections generally as stockholders of other NASDAQ-listed companies with respect to corporate governance for so long as we rely on these exemptions from the corporate governance requirements.

If we are unable to successfully maintain effective internal control over financial reporting, investors may lose confidence in our reported financial information and our stock price and business may be adversely impacted.

As a public company, we are required to maintain internal control over financial reporting and our management is required to evaluate the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of the end of each fiscal year. Additionally, we are required to disclose in our Annual Reports on Form 10-K our management’s assessment of the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting and a registered public accounting firm’s attestation report on this assessment. If we are not successful in maintaining effective internal control over financial reporting, there could be inaccuracies or omissions in the consolidated financial information we are required to file with the SEC. Additionally, even if there are no inaccuracies or omissions, we could be required to publicly disclose the conclusion of our management that our internal control over financial reporting or disclosure controls and procedures are not effective. These events could cause investors to lose confidence in our reported financial information, adversely impact our stock price, result in increased costs to remediate any deficiencies, attract regulatory scrutiny or lawsuits that could be costly to resolve and distract management’s attention, limit our ability to access the capital markets or cause our stock to be delisted from NASDAQ or any other securities exchange on which we are then listed.

The market price and trading volume of our common stock may be volatile and may face negative pressure.

Our stock price has experienced, and could continue to experience in the future, substantial volatility. The market price of our common stock is affected by a number of factors, including the risk factors described in this section and other factors beyond our control. Factors affecting the trading price of our common stock could include:

Furthermore, the stock markets have experienced price and volume fluctuations that have affected and continue to affect the market prices of equity securities of many companies. These fluctuations often have been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. These broad market and industry fluctuations and general economic, political and market conditions, such as recessions, interest rate changes or foreign currency exchange fluctuations, may negatively impact the market price of our common stock regardless of our actual operating performance.

Future sales of shares of our common stock in the public market, or the perception that such sales may occur, may depress our stock price.

For the year ended December 31, 2017, the average daily trading volume of our common stock on NASDAQ was approximately 3.1 million shares. If our existing stockholders or their distributees sell substantial amounts of

 

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our common stock in the public market, the market price of the common stock could decrease significantly. The perception in the public market that our existing stockholders might sell shares of common stock could also depress the trading price of our common stock. In addition, certain stockholders have rights, subject to some conditions, to require us to file registration statements covering their shares or to include their shares in registration statements that we may file for ourselves or other stockholders. If LTRIP or some other stockholder sells substantial amounts of our common stock in the public market, or if there is a perception in the public market that LTRIP might sell shares of our common stock, the market price of our common stock could decrease significantly. A decline in the price of shares of our common stock might impede our ability to raise capital through the issuance of additional shares of our common stock or other equity securities.

Anti-takeover provisions in our organizational documents and Delaware law may discourage or prevent a change of control, even if an acquisition would be beneficial to our stockholders, which could affect our stock price adversely and prevent attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management.

Our certificate of incorporation and bylaws contain provisions that could delay or prevent a change of control of our company or changes in our Board of Directors that our stockholders might consider favorable. These provisions include:

We are subject to the provisions of Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which may prohibit certain business combinations with stockholders owning 15% or more of our outstanding voting stock. These and other provisions in our certificate of incorporation, bylaws and Delaware law could make it more difficult for stockholders or potential acquirers to obtain control of our Board of Directors or initiate actions that are opposed by our then-current Board of Directors, including a merger, tender offer or proxy contest involving our company. Any delay or prevention of a change of control transaction or changes in our Board of Directors could cause the market price of our common stock to decline.

 

 

None.

We currently lease approximately 280,000 square feet for our corporate headquarters in Needham, Massachusetts, pursuant to a lease with an expiration date of December 2030, with an option to extend the lease term for two consecutive terms of five years each. Refer to “Note 13— Commitments and Contingencies” in the notes to our consolidated financial statements in Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for further information on our corporate headquarters.

We also lease an aggregate of approximately 450,000 square feet of office space at approximately 40 other locations across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific, including New York, Boston, London, Sydney, Barcelona, Paris, and Beijing, primarily for our sales offices, subsidiary headquarters, and international management teams, pursuant to leases with various expiration dates, with the latest expiring in June 2027. We believe that our current facilities are adequate for our current operations and that additional leased space can be obtained on reasonable terms if needed. We do not legally own any real estate as of December 31, 2017.

 

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In the ordinary course of business, we are parties to legal proceedings and claims involving alleged infringement of third-party intellectual property rights, defamation, taxes, regulatory compliance and other claims. Rules and regulations promulgated by the SEC require the description of material pending legal proceedings, other than ordinary, routine litigation incident to the registrant’s business, and advise that proceedings ordinarily need not be described if they primarily involve damages claims for amounts (exclusive of interest and costs) not individually exceeding 10% of the current assets of the registrant and its subsidiaries on a consolidated basis. In the judgment of management, none of the pending litigation matters that we are defending involves or is likely to involve amounts of that magnitude. There may be claims or actions pending or threatened against us of which we are currently not aware and the ultimate disposition of which could have a material adverse effect on us.

Not applicable.

 

 

PART II

 

Market Information

Our common stock is quoted on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol “TRIP.” On February 9, 2018, the closing price of our common stock reported on NASDAQ was $38.31 per share. The following table sets forth, for the periods indicated, the high and low sale prices per share of our common stock as reported on NASDAQ during the period indicated.

 

Our Class B common stock is not listed and there is no established public trading market for that security. As of February 9, 2018, all of our Class B common stock was held by LTRIP.

 

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Performance Comparison Graph

The following graph provides a comparison of the total stockholder return from December 31, 2012 to December 31, 2017 of an investment of $100 in cash on December 31, 2012 for TripAdvisor, Inc. common stock and an investment of $100 in cash on December 31, 2012 for (i) the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index (the “S&P 500 Index”), (ii) the NASDAQ Composite Index, and (iii) the Research Data Group (“RDG”) Internet Composite Index. The RDG Internet Composite Index is an index of stocks representing the internet industry, including internet software and service companies and e-commerce companies. The stock price performance shown on the graph below is not necessarily indicative of future price performance. Data for the S&P 500 Index, the NASDAQ Composite Index, and the RDG Internet Composite Index assume reinvestment of dividends. We have never paid dividends on our common stock.

 

This performance comparison graph is not “soliciting material,” is not deemed filed with the SEC and is not deemed to be incorporated by reference by any general statement incorporating by reference this Annual Report on Form 10-K into any filing of TripAdvisor, Inc. under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), or any filing under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”), except to the extent that we specifically request that the information be treated as soliciting material or specifically incorporate this information by reference into any such filing, and will not otherwise be deemed incorporated by reference into any other filing under the Securities Act or the Exchange Act, except to the extent that we specifically incorporate it by reference.

 

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Holders of Record

As of February 9, 2018, there were 126,183,939 outstanding shares of our common stock held by 2,358 stockholders of record, and 12,799,999 outstanding shares of our Class B common stock held by one stockholder of record: LTRIP.

Dividends

We have never declared or paid dividends and do not expect to pay any dividends for the foreseeable future. Our ability to pay dividends is limited by the terms of our 2015 Credit Facility. Refer to “Note 9— Debt” in the notes to the consolidated financial statements in Item 8 for additional information regarding this revolving credit facility. Any future determination as to the declaration and payment of dividends, if any, will be at the discretion of our Board of Directors and will depend on then-existing conditions, including our financial condition, operating results, contractual restrictions, capital requirements, business prospects and other factors our Board of Directors may deem relevant.

Unregistered Sales of Equity Securities

During the year ended December 31, 2017, we did not issue or sell any shares of our common stock, Class B common stock or other equity securities pursuant to unregistered transactions in reliance upon an exemption from the registration requirements of the Securities Act.

Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

On February 15, 2013, our Board of Directors authorized the repurchase of $250 million of our shares of common stock under a share repurchase program. During the year ended December 31, 2015, we did not repurchase any shares of outstanding common stock under the share repurchase program. During the year ended December 31, 2016, we repurchased 2,002,356 shares of outstanding common stock under the share repurchase program at an average cost of $52.35 per share. As of December 31, 2016, we had repurchased a total of 4,123,065 shares of outstanding common stock under the share repurchase program at an average cost of $60.63 per share and completed our share repurchase program authorized by our Board of Directors.

On January 25, 2017, our Board of Directors authorized an additional repurchase of $250 million of our shares of common stock under a new share repurchase program. Our Board of Directors authorized and directed management, working with the Executive Committee of our Board of Directors to affect the share repurchase program in compliance with applicable legal requirements. During the year ended December 31, 2017, we repurchased a total of 6,079,003 shares of the Company’s outstanding common stock at an average share price of $41.13, or $250 million in the aggregate, and completed this share repurchase program. As of December 31, 2017, there were 9,474,490 shares of the Company’s common stock held in treasury with an aggregate cost of $447 million.          

On January 31, 2018, TripAdvisor’s Board of Directors authorized up to $250 million of share repurchases. Our Board of Directors authorized and directed management, working with the Executive Committee of our Board of Directors, to affect the share repurchase program in compliance with applicable legal requirements. This new repurchase program has no expiration but may be suspended or terminated by the Board of Directors at any time.

Refer to “Note 15 —Stockholders’ Equity” in the notes to the consolidated financial statements in Item 8 for additional information regarding our treasury shares.

Equity Compensation Plan Information

Our equity plan information required by this item is incorporated by reference to the information in Part III, Item 12, of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

 

 

 

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We have derived the following selected financial data presented below from our consolidated financial statements and related notes. The information set forth below is not necessarily indicative of future results and should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and related notes appearing in Item 8 “Financial Statements and Supplementary Data,” and Item 7 “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” of this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Historical results are not necessarily indicative of the results to be expected in any future period.

 

 

 

 

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Item 7.Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

Overview

TripAdvisor, Inc., by and through its subsidiaries, owns and operates a portfolio of leading online travel brands. TripAdvisor, our flagship brand, is the world’s largest travel site based on monthly unique visitors, and its mission is to help people around the world plan, book and experience the perfect trip. We accomplish this by, among other things, aggregating millions of members’ reviews and opinions about destinations, accommodations, activities and attractions, and restaurants worldwide, thereby creating the foundation for a unique platform that enables users to research and plan their travel experiences. Our platform also enables users to compare real-time pricing and availability for these experiences as well as to book hotels, flights, cruises, vacation rentals, tours, activities and attractions, and restaurants, either on a TripAdvisor site or mobile app, or on the site or app of one of our travel partner sites.

Our TripAdvisor-branded websites include tripadvisor.com in the United States and localized versions of the TripAdvisor website in 48 markets and 28 languages worldwide. Our TripAdvisor-branded websites reached 455 million average monthly unique visitors in our seasonal peak during the year ended December 31, 2017, according to our internal log files. We currently feature approximately 600 million reviews and opinions on approximately 7.5 million places to stay, places to eat and things to do – including approximately 1.2 million hotels, inns, B&Bs and specialty lodging, 750,000 vacation rentals, 4.6 million restaurants and 915,000 activities and attractions worldwide.

In addition to the flagship TripAdvisor brand, we manage and operate 20 other travel media brands, connected by the common goal of providing users the most comprehensive travel-planning and trip-taking resources in the travel industry. For additional information about our portfolio of brands and our business model, see the disclosure set forth in Part I, Item 1. “Business”, under the caption “Overview.”

Our reporting structure includes two reportable segments: Hotel and Non-Hotel. Our Non-Hotel segment consists of our Attractions, Restaurants and Vacation Rentals businesses. Financial information and additional descriptive information related to our segments and geographic information is contained in “Note 17 — Segment and Geographic Information,” in the notes to our consolidated financial statements in Item 8 and below.

Executive Financial Summary and Trends

As the largest online travel platform, we believe we are an attractive marketing channel for travel partners—including hotel chains, independent hoteliers, online travel agencies, or OTAs, destination marketing organizations, and other travel-related and non-travel related product and service providers— who seek to sell their products and services to our large user base. We offer users the ability to do real-time price comparison through our metasearch feature, as well as the ability to book hotels, flights, cruises, vacation rentals, tours, activities and attractions, and restaurants either directly on our website or mobile app through our instant booking feature or on one of our travel partner sites.

Tax Reform

The 2017 Tax Act was signed into law on December 22, 2017, and has resulted in significant changes to the U.S. corporate income tax system. These changes include a federal statutory rate reduction from 35% to 21%, the elimination or reduction of certain domestic deductions and credits and limitations on the deductibility of interest expense and executive compensation. The 2017 Tax Act also transitions international taxation from a worldwide system to a modified territorial system and includes base erosion prevention measures on non-U.S. earnings, which

 

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has the effect of subjecting certain earnings of our foreign subsidiaries to U.S. taxation as global intangible low-taxed income (GILTI). These changes are effective beginning January 1, 2018.

 

The 2017 Tax Act also includes a one-time mandatory deemed repatriation tax on accumulated foreign subsidiaries' previously untaxed foreign earnings (the “Transition Tax”).

 

Changes in tax rates and tax laws are accounted for in the period of enactment. Therefore, during the year ended December 31, 2017, we recorded a charge totaling $73 million related to our current estimate of the provisions of the 2017 Tax Act, principally due to the Transition Tax. The Transition Tax, recorded of $67 million, will be paid over an eight-year period, starting in 2018, and will not accrue interest. We also recorded a charge of $6 million for the remeasurement of our net deferred tax assets. These estimates are reflected in our financial results in accordance with Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 118 (“SAB 118"), which provides for a measurement period to complete the accounting for certain elements of the tax reform. Refer to “Note 10 - Income Taxes” in the notes to the consolidated financial statements in Item 8 for further information on the financial statement impact of the 2017 Tax Act. As we complete our analysis of the 2017 Tax Act and interpret additional guidance issued with respect to the 2017 Tax Act, we may make adjustments to provisional amounts.  

 

Current Trends in Our Business 

The online travel industry is large and growing and remains highly dynamic and competitive.

Hotel Segment

During 2017, we continued to improve the hotel shopping experience on TripAdvisor by, among other things, launching a redesigned TripAdvisor website and mobile application and making it easier for our users to find the lowest hotel prices. We have and will continue to seek new ways to provide a more comprehensive hotel shopping experience, by improving content on destinations, properties and rooms, optimizing the room selection process and helping users find the best prices with our hotelier and OTA partners. On the supply side, we continue to on-board more partners that have unique brand, supply or room pricing to provide consumers a more comprehensive selection of accommodations in order to drive higher repeat usage and conversion of hotel shoppers to bookings and higher cost-per-click rates on our platform.

 We compete with other travel companies and search engines for hotel shoppers, which we define as the users who view TripAdvisor hotel pages. Hotel shoppers from unpaid online marketing channels, such as users that navigate directly to our homepage or applications through branded search queries on search engines, are of the highest value to our business. Over time, increased competition has resulted in hotel shoppers visiting our websites and applications from paid online marketing channels, such as SEM, to grow faster than traffic from unpaid online marketing channels, such as SEO, thereby increasing our aggregate cost of hotel shopper acquisition. Following the launch of our redesigned website, our new hotel shopping experience, we launched a brand advertising campaign, or television campaign, in June 2017 aimed at increasing usage of TripAdvisor as a place to find and book the best hotels at the lowest prices. We also continue to leverage a number of other marketing channels, both paid and unpaid, to achieve this objective, including online efforts such as social media and cost relationship management or CRM, as well as offline efforts such as TripAdvisor-branded advertising campaigns. Our television campaign has been funded, in part, through optimization of our online marketing spend. We expect to continue to optimize our marketing investment mix, between online and offline channels based on the relative growth opportunity, the expected returns and the competitive environment in which we operate. We believe optimizing our marketing mix to include brand advertising will help TripAdvisor establish a more durable, long-lasting direct relationship with users shopping for hotels, with a greater long-term financial return than we would be able to achieve solely from online paid marketing. Our marketing strategy comes with a near-term trade-off, as online paid marketing may better enable us to generate a short-term hotel shopper and click-based and transaction revenue, whereas we expect our television advertising campaign to generate such returns over a longer timeframe, improving marketing efficiency and profit growth.  

A key objective is to grow the number of hotel shoppers on our platform at or above our desired return on investment targets. In the year ended December 31, 2017, our average monthly unique hotel shoppers increased 7%, when compared to the same period in 2016, according to our internal log files. The increase is primarily due to the general trend of an increasing number of hotel shoppers visiting our websites and apps on mobile phones, as well as the success of our paid online marketing strategy, partially offset by marketing spend tradeoffs resulting from increased brand advertising investment in our television campaign, as discussed above.  

 

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Another key objective is to increase our revenue per hotel shopper. In the year ended December 31, 2017, our revenue per hotel shopper decreased 7%, when compared to the same period in 2016, primarily driven by partners bidding to lower CPCs in our click-based metasearch auction during the second half of the year, and the general trend of a greater percentage of hotel shoppers visiting TripAdvisor-branded websites and apps on mobile phones. During the year ended December 31, 2017, the growth rate of hotel shoppers that visited our websites and apps on mobile phones continued to grow significantly faster than that of hotel shoppers using desktop and tablet devices. Mobile phones currently generate significantly lower revenue per hotel shopper compared to desktop and tablet devices. We believe that this monetization difference is due to a number of factors, including the reduced ability to achieve marketing attribution on the mobile phone for facilitating traffic to partner websites and applications; more limited advertising opportunities on smaller screen devices; our historic positioning as a place to read reviews; and general consumer purchasing patterns on mobile phones resulting in lower booking intent, lower conversion rates, lower cost-per-click bids from our travel partners, and lower average gross booking value. As a result, our growth in hotel shoppers on mobile phones has remained a headwind against our overall revenue per hotel shopper and our TripAdvisor-branded click-based and transaction revenue. 

The general trend of increasing traffic to our websites and apps on mobile phones reduces our ability to grow TripAdvisor-branded display-based advertising revenue, as we believe prioritizing and preserving a cleaner user experience over increasing advertising units on smaller screen devices is the most appropriate way to engage more users on our mobile phone app. We continue to prioritize investment in product development in order to improve the mobile user experience, and to improve mobile phone traffic acquisition to increase our user base. We believe that, over the long-term, these efforts will result in increased usage and engagement, conversion of hotel shoppers to bookings for our hotel advertising partners and higher monetization rates for us.

Non-Hotel Segment

Our ongoing product efforts to deliver an end-to-end user experience extend to our Non-Hotel segment, which includes our Attractions, Restaurants, and Vacation Rentals businesses. Our key growth strategies have been to grow users, improve our products and grow bookable supply. We continued to deliver on those objectives during the year ended December 31, 2017, as monthly unique users to these pages on our websites and applications continued to grow, we enhanced our product experience on all devices, and we grew bookable supply on our platform in our Attractions and Restaurants businesses. Notably, we have been able to increasingly leverage strong user growth on the TripAdvisor-branded platform to drive increased bookings in our Attractions business. Additionally, our Attractions and Restaurants businesses have both experienced increased engagement and growth on mobile phones. In Vacation Rentals, as the business continues to shift from our subscription model to our free-to-list model, we have focused on delivering high-quality supply for users in order to drive conversion for partners on our platform. We continued to work to improve content and overall user experience across each business.

Continued successful execution of our key growth strategies and increased marketing and operating efficiencies primarily contributed to this segment’s revenue and profit growth during the year ended December 31, 2017, as compared to the same period in 2016. Our ongoing strategic objectives are to continue to enhance the user experience, to grow traffic and drive increased user engagement, to grow bookable supply, and to grow bookings in this segment.

 

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Results of Operations

Selected Financial Data

(in millions, except per share amounts and percentages)

 

 

Revenue and Segment Information

 

 

 

 

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Hotel Segment

Our Hotel segment revenue increased $6 million during the year ended December 31, 2017 when compared to the same period in 2016, primarily due to a $6 million increase in TripAdvisor-branded click-based and transaction revenue and a $10 million increase in TripAdvisor-branded display-based advertising and subscription revenue, partially offset by a decrease of $10 million in other hotel revenue, all of which are discussed below. Our Hotel segment revenue decreased $73 million during the year ended December 31, 2016 when compared to the same period in 2015, primarily due to a $87 million decrease in TripAdvisor-branded click-based and transaction revenue, partially offset by growth of $10 million in TripAdvisor-branded display-based advertising and subscription revenue, and $4 million in other hotel revenue, all of which are discussed below.

Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA margin in our Hotel segment decreased $94 million and to 24%, respectively, during the year ended December 31, 2017, when compared to the same period in 2016, primarily due to costs related to our television campaign, which launched in June 2017, and also due to increased SEM and other online traffic acquisition costs during the first half of 2017, partially offset by cost efficiencies created through optimization of our online marketing spend during the second half of 2017. Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA margin in our Hotel segment decreased $92 million and decreased to 32%, during the year ended December 31, 2016 when compared to the same period in 2015, primarily due to a decrease in Hotel segment revenue, which is discussed below, and increased operating costs, primarily driven by an increase in online traffic acquisition costs, partially offset by lower television advertising costs due to the cessation of our 2015 television advertising campaign in 2016.

The following is a detailed discussion of the revenue sources within our Hotel segment:

 

 

TripAdvisor-branded Click-based and Transaction Revenue

TripAdvisor-branded click-based and transaction revenue includes cost-per-click-based advertising revenue from our TripAdvisor-branded websites as well as transaction-based revenue from our hotel instant booking feature. For the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015, approximately 63%, 63% and 66%, respectively, of our total Hotel segment revenue was derived from our TripAdvisor-branded click-based and transaction revenue.  TripAdvisor-branded click-based and transaction revenue increased $6 million during the year ended December 31, 2017, when compared to the same period in 2016, primarily due to an increase in average monthly unique hotel shoppers of 7%, which was largely offset by a decrease of 7% in revenue per hotel shopper during the year ended December 31, 2017, which is explained below. TripAdvisor-branded click-based and transaction revenue decreased $87 million during the year ended December 31, 2016, when compared to the same period in 2015, primarily due to a decline of 15% in revenue per hotel shopper, partially offset by an increase in average monthly unique hotel shoppers of 6% during the year ended December 31, 2016, which is explained below.

Our largest source of Hotel segment revenue is click-based advertising revenue from our TripAdvisor-branded websites, which include links to our travel partners’ sites and contextually-relevant branded and related text links. Click-based advertising is generated primarily through our metasearch auction, a description of which follows. Our click-based travel partners are predominantly OTAs and hoteliers. Click-based advertising is generally priced on a cost-per-click, or CPC, basis, with payments to us from advertisers based on the number of users who click on each type of link or, in other words, the conversion of a hotel shopper to a paid click. CPC is the price that a partner is willing to pay us for a hotel shopper lead and is determined in a competitive process that enables our partners to submit CPC bids to have their rates and availability listed on our site. When a partner submits a CPC bid, they agree

 

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to pay us the bid amount each time a user subsequently clicks on the link to that partner’s website. Bids can be submitted periodically – as often as daily– on a property-by-property basis. Primary factors used to determine the placement of partner links on our site include, but are not limited to, room night price, the size of the bid relative to other bids, and other variables. CPCs are generally lower in markets outside the U.S. market, and hotel shoppers visiting via mobile phones currently monetize at a significantly lower rate than hotel shoppers visiting via desktop or tablet.

Our Hotel segment transaction-based revenue is comprised of revenue from our hotel instant booking feature, which enables the merchant of record, generally an OTA or hotel partner, to pay a commission to TripAdvisor for a user that completes a hotel reservation via our website. This feature was rolled out in our two largest markets – the United States and the United Kingdom – in the third quarter of 2015, and we completed an accelerated and staged global rollout of this feature to all of our markets during the first half of 2016. Instant booking revenue is currently recognized under two different models: the consumption model and the transaction model. Under the consumption model, which currently represents the majority of our instant booking revenue, commission revenue is not recorded until such time as the traveler completes their stay, at which time our consumption partner is liable to us for commission payment. Under the transaction model commission revenue is recorded at the time a traveler books a hotel reservation on our site, as our transaction partner is liable for commission payments to us upon booking and the partner assumes the cancellation risk. OTA and hotel partner placement, as well as comparative hotel prices available to the traveler in the booking process under both models, is determined by a bidding process within our proprietary automated bidding system, that takes into account a number of variables, primarily hotel room prices, but also including other factors, such as conversion rates and commission rates, depending on the specific hotel selected. Instant booking commissions are primarily a function of average gross booking value generated from hotel reservations, cancellation rates experienced, and commission rates negotiated with each of our partners.

The key drivers of TripAdvisor-branded click-based and transaction revenue include growth in average monthly unique hotel shoppers and revenue per hotel shopper growth, the latter of which measures how effectively we convert our hotel shoppers into revenue. We measure performance by calculating revenue per hotel shopper on an aggregate basis by dividing total TripAdvisor-branded click-based and transaction revenue by total average monthly unique hotel shoppers on TripAdvisor-branded websites for the periods presented.

While we believe that total traffic growth, or growth in monthly visits from unique visitors, is reflective of our overall brand growth, we also track and analyze sub-segments of our traffic and their correlation to revenue generation and utilize data regarding hotel shoppers as one of the key indicators of revenue growth. Hotel shoppers are visitors who view either a listing of hotels in a city or on a specific hotel page. The number of hotel shoppers tends to vary based on seasonality of the travel industry and general economic conditions, as well as other factors outside of our control. Given these factors, as well as the trend towards increased usage on mobile phones and international expansion, quarterly and annual hotel shopper growth is a difficult metric to forecast.  

The below table summarizes our revenue per hotel shopper calculation and growth rate, in aggregate, for the periods presented (in millions, except calculated revenue per hotel shopper and percentages):

 

 

 

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2017 vs. 2016

Revenue per hotel shopper decreased 7% during the year ended December 31, 2017, when compared to the same period in 2016, according to our internal log files. The decrease was primarily driven by partners bidding to lower CPCs in our click-based metasearch auction during the second half of the year, and the general trend of a greater percentage of hotel shoppers visiting TripAdvisor-branded websites and apps on mobile phones, which monetize at a lower rate than desktop hotel shoppers, which grew significantly faster than traffic from desktop and tablet devices, as well as dilution from product testing related to the second-quarter 2017 launch of our redesigned website and applications, and the timing of our instant booking feature rollout in certain non-U.S. markets during the first half of 2016.

Our aggregate average monthly unique hotel shoppers on TripAdvisor-branded websites increased by 7% during the year ended December 31, 2017, when compared to the same period in 2016, according to our internal log files. The increase in hotel shoppers is primarily due to the general trend of an increasing number of hotel shoppers visiting our websites and apps on mobile phones, as well as growth in our paid online marketing channels, partially offset by marketing spend tradeoffs resulting from increased brand advertising investment in our television campaign, as discussed above. 

2016 vs. 2015

Revenue per hotel shopper decreased 15% during the year ended December 31, 2016, when compared to the same period in 2015, according to our internal log files. We believe the primary drivers of this decrease included the dilutive effects from our global launch of our instant booking feature, which impacted 2016 to a greater extent than 2015 due to the timing of the staged rollout; a greater percentage of hotel shoppers visiting TripAdvisor websites and apps via mobile phones; challenging metasearch comparatives in early 2016 relative to the same periods in 2015; increased competition; macroeconomic and geopolitical factors, including foreign currency and a number of terrorism events.

Our aggregate average monthly unique hotel shoppers on TripAdvisor-branded websites increased by 6% during the year ended December 31, 2016, when compared to the same period in 2015, according to our internal log files. The increase in hotel shoppers was primarily due to growth in our paid online marketing channels as well as the general trend of an increasing number of hotel shoppers visiting our websites and apps on mobile phones during 2016, which has grown significantly faster than traffic from desktop and tablet devices.

TripAdvisor-branded Display-based Advertising and Subscription Revenue

For the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015, 24%, 24% and 22%, respectively, of our Hotel segment revenue was derived from our TripAdvisor-branded display-based advertising and subscription revenue, which primarily consists of revenue from display-based advertising and subscription-based hotel advertising revenue. Our TripAdvisor-branded display-based advertising and subscription revenue increased by $10 million or 4%, during each of the years ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively, when compared to the same periods in 2016 and 2015.

2017 vs. 2016

The increase in display-based advertising revenue was primarily due to an increase in impressions sold, as well as an increase in pricing, partially offset by the general trend of an increasing percentage of our traffic visiting our websites and apps on mobile phones. While we continue to focus on new product initiatives to drive growth, our subscription revenue decreased slightly, primarily as we work to enhance our product offering to hoteliers and increase our sales pipeline in this business, in addition to hotel industry consolidation.

2016 vs. 2015

The increase in display-based advertising revenue was primarily due to a slight increase in pricing, as well as impressions sold during the year, while the increase in subscription revenue was a result of increased sales productivity in 2015 which also benefitted 2016, as well as increased pricing and improvements in customer retention rates.  

 

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Other Hotel Revenue

For the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015, 12%, 13% and 12%, respectively, of our Hotel segment revenue was derived from other hotel revenues. Our other hotel revenue primarily includes revenue from non-TripAdvisor branded websites, such as bookingbuddy.com, cruisecritic.com, and onetime.com, including click-based advertising revenue, display-based advertising revenue and room reservations sold through these websites.  Our other hotel revenue decreased by $10 million during the year ended December 31, 2017, when compared to the same period in 2016, primarily due to increased focus on return on marketing spend from paid marketing channels within this revenue stream. Our other hotel revenue increased $4 million during the year ended December 31, 2016, when compared to the same period in 2015.  

Non-Hotel Segment

For the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015, our Non-Hotel segment revenue accounted for 23%, 20% and 15%, respectively, of our total consolidated revenue. Our Non-Hotel segment revenue increased by $70 million or 24%, for the year ended December 31, 2017, when compared to the same period in 2016, driven by increased bookings in our Attractions and Restaurants businesses. Our Non-Hotel segment revenue increased $61 million, or 27%, during the year ended December 31, 2016 when compared to the same period in 2015, primarily driven by increased bookings across all businesses.

During this timeframe, strong revenue growth in our Attractions business has been driven by the following factors: growth in bookings sourced by TripAdvisor, growth in bookable supply, which leads to better consumer choice, as well as by growth in free and paid traffic sources. Another contributing factor is the improved shopping experience from the introduction of new features, such as attractions instant booking for mobile phone, which enables users to purchase tickets and tours seamlessly without leaving the mobile app. These factors are all contributing to more consumer choice, increased bookings and continued revenue growth. Similarly, in our Restaurants business, continued strong revenue growth can be attributed to increased bookings in our most established markets, expansion into new markets, growth in mobile bookings, a continually improving user experience and an increase in bookable supply of restaurant listings. Revenue in our Vacation Rentals business decreased slightly during the year ended December 31, 2017, when compared to the same period in 2016, primarily due to the continued migration of our subscription model to our free-to-list model, which we believe will have a longer term return to the business, in addition to slower growth in our free-to-list revenues than 2016. Revenue in our Vacation Rentals business increased during the year ended December 31, 2016, when compared to the same period in 2015, primarily due to growth in our free-to-list model and increased bookings during the year.

Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA margin in our Non-Hotel segment increased $73 million and to 13%, respectively, during the year ended December 31, 2017, when compared to the same period in 2016. This increase was primarily due to increased revenue growth, in addition to increased efficiencies in paid online marketing channels and other operational synergies across our Attractions and Vacation Rentals businesses, partially offset by increased personnel and overhead costs to support growth in this segment for the year ended December 31, 2017. Adjusted EBITDA in our Non-Hotel segment decreased $22 million during the year ended December 31, 2016, when compared to the same period in 2015. The decrease during the year ended December 31, 2016, when compared to the same period in 2015, was primarily due to increased personnel and overhead costs of $47 million, in addition to increased online traffic acquisition costs and merchant credit card and transaction fees, which more than offset the increase in revenue.   

 

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Revenue by Geography

The following table presents our revenue by geographic region. Revenue by geography is based on the geographic location of our websites: