TripAdvisor founder and president, Steve Kaufer, has declared 2015 will be the year that the “world’s largest travel site” get truly serious about becoming a transaction based site rather a research platform where a few bookings get made.
“We were very pleased with the how we ended 2014, a year in which we laid the foundation for TripAdvisor’s future.
“In addition to helping users plan a trip, we have begun enabling more users to complete their booking in our three largest demand categories: hotels, attractions and restaurants.
“Starting in 2015, we plan to aggressively scale and promote this more complete user proposition.”
Mr Kaufer made the statement in TripAdvisor’s annual result announcement, which revealed a full year profit of USD226m, an increase of 10% over 2013.
Revenue for the full year grew much faster at 32%, reaching USD1.245 billion.
The company said its websites had more than 2.5 billion unique visitors during 2014, according to Google Analytics.
TripAdvisor shares gained 12.3% in after hours trade.