There are times when the student surpasses the master. This is the case of TripAdvisor, a former subsidiary of Expedia, which a year and a half after being spun off has exceeded the stock market value of the historic travel site.
The overtaking is the result of a reorganization of the web portal, now richer in the offer, and does not seem to suffer the repercussions of the recent hoax review of a restaurant that never existed.
Expedia's reaction took too long and the effects were already seen last spring. Its market value today is 6,9 billion dollars, 40 percent less than its rival TripAdvisor, which rises to 11 billion.
But the change at the top is also evident on search engines. Users type in Google “TripAdvisor” almost one and a half times more than “Expedia”. Less than two years ago, the ranking was reversed and the former subsidiary had to settle for half of the searches.
The challenge is also between two different business models. Expedia makes money from booking commissions, while TripAdvisor relies on advertising – often from other travel sites – and uses its catalog of more than 100 million reviews to attract users.
