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Tripadvisor laid off roughly 75 employees and severed ties with around 90 contractors, a move the company announced in an all-hands meeting this morning led by Tripadvisor President Kristen Dalton, according to two sources familiar with the layoffs.
One of the sources pegged the number at closer to 150 impacted employees and contractors. They included staffers in the U.S., Canada, and Europe.
A Tripadvisor spokesperson said: “The company does periodically make decisions that result in organizational changes or impacts to roles. However, we don’t comment on personnel matters.”
The firings impacted Brand Tripadvisor, and didn’t affect sister brands Viator and TheFork, one of the sources said. The personnel affected worked in trip-planning, reviews, experiences, operations and engineering, among other areas of the company.
“The layoffs were management heavy,” one source said, adding that one of the casualties was the general manager of Tripadvisor experiences. Both Viator and Tripadvisor sell experiences.
Brand Tripadvisor Versus Viator
Sources said Dalton made references to financial targets falling short and the need to have a laser focus on strategy as rationales for the firings.
The Brand Tripadvisor segment includes hotel metasearch, media and advertising, and experiences and dining. Viator, in particular, has overtaken Brand Tripadvisor as the darling of the group: Viator’s revenue in the third quarter grew 10% year-over-year compared with Brand Tripadvisor’s 12% decline.
In the third quarter of 2023, Tripadvisor laid off around 125 employees. The layoffs and other cost reduction measures led to around $35 million in annual cost savings at Brand Tripadvisor and $10 million at the dining reservations platform, TheFork.
The layoffs announced Tuesday occur as Tripadvisor is poised to acquire its parent company, Liberty Tripadvisor, for $435 million.
