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Tripadvisor expects
SEO headwinds in 2027
Tripadvisor expects
SEO headwinds in 2027
Tripadvisor expects weaker traffic from Google to keep dragging down growth in 2027. In the third quarter, revenue in the Hotels and Other segment fell 23 percent, and marketing consumed 48.8 percent of revenue. The money increasingly goes to paid channels meant to replace the traffic the company used to get for free from search.
Why did Tripadvisor write down 369.5 million dollars?
The impairment concerns goodwill in Hotels and Other, which covers hotel search and media advertising. According to the company, it is largely due to persistent traffic declines, amplified by changes in search. Revenue in the segment fell to 151.6 million dollars in the quarter.
CFO Mike Noonan said on the earnings call that SEO will remain a headwind in 2027. He put SEO exposure at "mid to high teens", clearly lower than a year ago, without saying what the figure is a share of. The smaller the share of bookings that comes from search, the less a new decline hurts.
−23% revenue in Hotels and Other
48.8% of revenue goes to marketing
369.5 million dollars written down in goodwill
5x better conversion on AI traffic at Viator
Free traffic is being replaced with paid
Marketing cost about the same as the year before, around 213 million dollars. The share rose because revenue from continuing operations fell 11 percent, to 436.4 million dollars.
Noonan links the increase to Tripadvisor buying traffic in paid channels to make up for what disappears from organic search. Paid search is still the largest channel, but CEO Matt Goldberg said the auctions have become tougher. The company is therefore moving more of its budget to social media and channels earlier in the buying journey.
Viator is doing better than Tripadvisor
Viator, which sells activities and experiences, is far less dependent on SEO than the legacy Tripadvisor business. Bookings at Viator rose 4 percent, while experiences booked via the Tripadvisor site fell by a low double-digit percentage. Overall, Experiences grew 2 percent.
In the second quarter, management estimated that SEO dragged growth in Experiences down by around 5 percentage points. The estimate is now around 3 percentage points.
AI traffic is small, but converts well
Traffic from AI services probably makes up under 1 percent of the total, but it is growing. According to Goldberg, it converts close to five times better than average at Viator and about twice as well at Tripadvisor. He also said the brands lead on share of citations in AI answers about experiences, without explaining how that is measured.
Our take
For many years Tripadvisor has been one of the winners in travel search on Google. Now that the company has to pay for traffic it used to get for free, hotels and travel businesses should look at how dependent they are on organic search themselves. AI traffic is too small to replace what is disappearing, even though it converts well.
Know your channel mix.Measure how much of your bookings come from organic search, paid search and booking portals, and you will see how vulnerable you are.
Win the searches for your own name.A guest searching for your hotel should land with you and book direct.
Measure AI traffic separately.The volume is small, but a dedicated channel in GA4 shows whether it converts as well for you.
Read more aboutmarketing for hotels and travel, how we work as anSEO agencyand withpaid search.
Sources:Search Engine Journal, 8 November 2026,Tripadvisor's third-quarter 2026 earnings releaseandthe company's commentary on the quarter.
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