Viator is surging, with a lot more to give: Travel Weekly

Tripadvisor Group announced that its local experiences platform, Viator, was to become “the strategic and financial center of the group.” It also introduced former Booking.com chief marketing officer Pepijn Rijvers as the new president of Viator. Travel Weekly editor in chief Arnie Weissmann spoke with Rijvers and Tripadvisor Group CEO Matt Goldberg about what the shift in emphasis might mean for its travel agency partners who book local experiences through Viator.

Q: Many of the local experiences booked via Viator come directly from Tripadvisor destination guidance pages. How important are your B-to-B channels?

Rijvers: This category is crucial. It ranges from mom-and-pop agencies to Booking.com and Expedia. It’s a very significant part of our current revenue profile.

Goldberg: We have 10,000 affiliates and 100,000 travel advisor partners. They continue to be very important for us. I’ve had calls with travel advisors to better understand how they’re working, and I often hear about their problems, that things could be better if they had this tool or that data. We’re very focused on understanding these small businesses and giving them the tools, data and the insights that they need to grow. 

Q: Viator represented 46% of your revenue last quarter. Is there much room to grow that further?

Pepijn Rijvers

Rijvers: The experience category is still fairly immature, which makes it quite exciting. The arrival of AI and what it will do to the way that consumers around the world transact is super exciting to me because we’re in for some rapid innovation, if not rapid disruption.

Goldberg: Experiences are central to our vision for where we are going as a group. It has been a very fast growth channel for the business, and I think you can see that we have a focus, a determination and a commitment to lean in deeply and really make sure we are serving travelers unbelievably well. And, similarly and equally, to think about the operator side and our B-to-B partners. 

Q: Do you see potential in cruising? Pre- and post-visits in ports? Shore excursions?

Rijvers: Ports of call is a big part of our business, and we see it growing year over year, so it’s increasingly an area of focus for us. We recently launched enhancements to make it easier for advisors to find, recommend and book shore excursions. New features include enhanced search functionality for specific cruise lines, ships and sailing dates; recommendations tailored to client itineraries; and ways to share recommendations directly with clients. We’ll be investing further in this space.

Matt Goldberg

Goldberg: I’ve spent a fair amount of time with the cruise CEOs. There may be really interesting ways to partner in the future when we think about the technology and inventory that we bring.

Q: Where do you see opportunities not yet tapped?

Rijvers: The availability of last-minute bookings is a lot lower than what I would expect. … Another example is language. If a Frenchman is going to Rome, or an Asian person who is not fluent in English is visiting the U.S., how do we create something where they can explore the city in a high-quality way? There’s a lot of opportunity to go international at a larger scale.

Goldberg: Figuring out how to get [Viator and Tripadvisor] working together is an important opportunity for us. How can they connect to each other in an interesting way? We want to make sure that we are differentiating appropriately, but finding ways to connect them effectively should pay meaningful dividends.