Marc Charron, Managing Director of TripAdvisor Asia Pacific has recently moved to Singapore to set up the regional office for TripAdvisor, to complement the already existing teams in China, Japan and India. He will now be responsible for the world’s largest travel website in the world’s fastest growing region.

 

There is no doubt about it, the technological landscape is changing very fast and Marc has seen a lot of these changes in the past 4.5 years since he joined TripAdvisor, which itself is only 10 years old.  

 

And a key aspect of this change is that you cannot really rest on your laurels, for change is accelerating at a maddening pace and you can suddenly find yourself left out of the game altogether.

 

Till recently, the focus of TripAdvisor was mostly on Europe, a continent that in terms of revenue and audience reach provided a tremendous engine for growth.  Seeing what they’ve accomplished in Europe, and learning from some of their mistakes there, the focus has now shifted to Asia where the investment is based on future expectations given that there is a significant growth potential.

 

We’ve heard throughout the past two days that localization is key if you want to succeed in Asia. TripAdvisor already has 15 different language sites and has just recently launched sites for Korea and Thailand. For them it’s key to generate global language content that can be valuable to everyone. However, there are still some challenges in terms of localization.  

 

TripAdvisor has dabbled with manual translations in order to encourage people to contribute in their local languages, but it is an expensive option. Automatic translation gets the gist across, in a fast and effective way, even though it may not be totally accurate. You’ve got to pick your battles.

 

Interestingly, Marc mentioned that nowadays everyone seems to be confused by social media, including themselves.  It’s somewhat like a rubik’s cube, something that we’re all grappling with.  TripAdvisor’s mobile app has been downloaded 20 million times, with more than 5 million monthly users.  Yet no one one has a great sense yet on how to make social media meaningful for their business.

 

It is often said that TripAdvisor focuses too much on the consumer and tends to leave the hotelier out of the picture.  Yet Marc emphasized that they’re engaging hoteliers more than ever.

 

They’ve always had a chance to contribute, to respond to reviews, but the response from them has been traditionally low. To change that TripAdvisor has started offering webinars and educating hoteliers on how to participate in TripAdvisor for most hoteliers, he states, see TripAdvisor as an opportunity.

 

Inevitably, the question had to arise. Is TripAdvisor ruining the romance of travel.  After all, how much surprise is really left after you’ve read all the reviews online?

 

Marc came back with a good response.  How many surprises do you really want when you go on vacation?  A big bank of strong user reviews is important for the customer, because more than listening to traditional marketing, consumers trust the experiences of other consumers.  

 

TripAdvisor gives people more confidence when they go on a trip, so that they can perhaps take risks in other more exciting aspects of their vacation.  Good information is inspirational and that in itself contributes to the romance of travel.

 

What is the biggest game changer that TripAdvisor has introduced in the last year?  It’s most probably their acquisition of vacation rental company Holiday Lettings.