XML 23 R10.htm IDEA: XBRL DOCUMENT v3.22.4
Organization and Business Description
12 Months Ended
Dec. 31, 2022
Accounting Policies [Abstract]  
Organization and Business Description

NOTE 1: ORGANIZATION AND BUSINESS DESCRIPTION

We refer to Tripadvisor, Inc. and our wholly-owned subsidiaries as “Tripadvisor,” “Tripadvisor group,” “the Company,” “us,” “we” and “our” in these notes to the consolidated financial statements.

On December 20, 2011, Expedia Group, Inc. (“Expedia”) completed a spin-off of Tripadvisor into a separate publicly traded Delaware corporation. We refer to this transaction as the “Spin-Off.” Tripadvisor’s common stock began trading on The Nasdaq as an independent public company on December 21, 2011, 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, and as of December 31, 2022, LTRIP beneficially owned approximately 16.4 million shares of our common stock and 12.8 million shares of our Class B common stock, which constitute nearly 13% 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 nearly 21% of the outstanding common stock. Because each share of Class B common stock 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 approximately 56% of our voting power.

Description of Business

The Tripadvisor group operates as a family of brands with a purpose of connecting people to experiences worth sharing. Our vision is to be the world’s most trusted source for travel and experiences. The Company operates across three reportable segments: Tripadvisor Core, Viator, and TheFork. We leverage our brands, technology platforms, and capabilities to connect our large, global audience with partners by offering rich content, travel guidance products and services, and two-sided marketplaces for experiences, accommodations, restaurants, and other travel categories.

Tripadvisor Core’s purpose is to empower everyone to be a better traveler by serving as the world’s most trusted and essential travel guidance platform. The Tripadvisor brand offers travelers and experience seekers an online global platform for travelers to discover, generate, and share authentic user-generated content (“UGC”) in the form of ratings and reviews for destinations, points-of-interest (“POIs”), experiences, accommodations, restaurants, and cruises in over 40 countries and over 20 languages across the world. As of December 31, 2022, Tripadvisor offered more than 1 billion user-generated ratings and reviews on nearly 8 million experiences, accommodations, restaurants, airlines, and cruises.

Viator enables travelers to discover and book iconic, unique and memorable experiences from experience operators around the globe. Our online marketplace is comprehensive, connecting travelers to bookable tours, activities and attractions—consisting of over 300,000 experiences from more than 50,000 operators as of December 31, 2022.

TheFork provides an online marketplace that enables diners to discover and book online reservations at more than 55,000 restaurants in 12 countries, as of December 31, 2022, across the UK, western and central Europe, and Australia.

Risks and Uncertainties

In December 2019, a novel strain of coronavirus (“COVID-19”) was reported in Wuhan, China, and on March 11, 2020 was declared a global pandemic. COVID-19 caused material and adverse declines in consumer demand within the travel, hospitality, restaurant, and leisure industry. The pandemic’s proliferation, concurrent with travel bans, varying levels of governmental restrictions and mandates globally to limit the spread of the virus, dampened consumer demand for our products and services, and impacted consumer sentiment and discretionary spending patterns. Consequently, the COVID-19 pandemic adversely and materially affected our business, results of operations, liquidity and financial condition during the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020. In 2022, we generally experienced a travel demand recovery fueled by the continued easing of government restrictions globally and increased consumer travel demand.

During the year ended December 31, 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we took several steps to further strengthen our financial position and balance sheet including but not limited to, restructuring activities, primarily by significantly reducing our ongoing operating expenses and headcount. During the year ended December 31, 2020, the Company incurred total restructuring and other related reorganization costs of $41 million which consisted of employee severance and related benefits. In addition, in order to maintain financial liquidity and flexibility during this time period, the Company (i) borrowed $700 million from our Credit Facility in the first quarter of 2020 (subsequently repaid during the third quarter of 2020); (ii) amended our Credit Agreement, which included short-term financial covenant relief and the extension of the maturity date from May 12, 2022 to May 12, 2024; and (iii) raised additional financing through the issuance of $500 million in Senior Notes by the Company in July 2020, all which are described in more detail in “Note 9: Debt”.

We may continue to be subject to risks and uncertainties related to the COVID-19 pandemic. We believe the travel, leisure, hospitality, and restaurant industries, and our financial results, would be adversely and materially affected upon a resurgence of existing COVID-19 variants (e.g., Delta, Omicron, and BA.5) or if new variants emerge, which result in reinstated travel bans and/or other government restrictions and mandates, all of which would likely negatively impact consumer demand, sentiment and discretionary spending patterns.

Additionally, other distinct health-related events, political instability, geopolitical conflicts, acts of terrorism, fluctuations in currency values, changes in global economic conditions, including the impact of a potential U.S. recession, and increased inflation, are examples of other events that could have a negative impact on the travel industry, and as a result, our financial results in the future.

Seasonality

Consumers' travel expenditures have historically followed a seasonal pattern. Correspondingly, travel partner advertising investments, and therefore our revenue and operating profits, have also historically followed a seasonal pattern. Our financial performance tends to be seasonally highest in the second and third quarters of a given year, which includes the seasonal peak in consumer demand, including traveler accommodation stays, and travel experiences taken, compared to the first and fourth quarters, which represent seasonal low points. In addition, during the first half of the year, experience bookings typically exceed the amount of completed experiences, resulting in higher cash flow related to working capital, while during the second half of the year, particularly in the third quarter, this pattern reverses and cash flows from these transactions are typically negative.

Certain factors may impact our typical seasonal fluctuations, which may include any significant shifts in our business mix or adverse economic conditions that could result in future seasonal patterns that are different from historical trends. For example, the negative impact to our business from COVID-19 materially affected our historical trends at varying levels during the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, while these trends significantly improved during the year ended December 31, 2022, resulting in increased revenues, and working capital and operating cash flow more akin to typical historical seasonality trends.