TripAdvisor CEO on Moving From User Reviews Toward Professional Content

There were some fairly shocking things to emerge from TripAdvisor's big announcement Monday about its launch in a private beta of a travel feed to provide inspiration to site visitors and enhance their trip-planning activities. TripAdvisor CEO Steve Kaufer, who co-founded the company that now hosts 661 million user reviews, told the assembled press in Manhattan that "if I'm going to London, the last thing I want to do is read 1,000 hotel reviews. I want inspiration." So the site, which grew into a global brand based on the wisdom of the crowds as opposed to the professional critic, will soon offer advice and recommendations from social media influencers such as TV host and restaurateur Giada De Laurentiis, as well as travel bloggers like TravelBabbo. Don't Miss TripAdvisor CEO Steve Kaufer at Skift Global Forum. Instead of relying on user "Andrea O's" review about the Crowne Plaza Times Square Manhattan and its TripAdvisor popularity index, ranking the property 221 out of 482 hotels in New York City, the new TripAdvisor will add tips from publishers such as National Geographic, Condé Nast Traveler, the Travel Channel, Business Insider, and PopSugar, for example. Reviews from newspapers and travel guidebooks were prevalent during TripAdvisor's earliest days, but were erased when the company found that traveler-written reviews really resonated. Back To Its Roots So, in some ways, TripAdvisor is going full circle. "We are going social and we are getting personal," Kaufer said. After all, Kaufer, who described himself as an avid scuba diver, said he wants to find content o