s & p 500 component founded february 2000 ; 16 years ago 2000 02 headquarters needham massachusetts 1 u.s. area served worldwide founder s stephen kaufer 2 key people stephen kaufer co founder and chief executive officer inventor west industry travel services products hotel and flights booking vacation rentals restaurant finding travel guides revenue 1.492 billion in 2015 3 employees 3 008 people as of dec 2015 q4 report website tripadvisor.com native client s on ios watchos android windows windows phone tripadvisor inc. is an american travel website company providing reviews of travel related content . it also includes interactive travel forums . tripadvisor was an early adopter of user generated content . the website services are free to users who provide most of the content and the website is supported by an advertising business model . 4 contents 1 description 2 history 3 acquisitions 4 controversy and fraudulent reviews 5 see also 6 references 7 external links description edit tripadvisor booth at itb berlin 2014 tripadvisor headquartered in needham massachusetts 1 claims to be the largest travel site in the world with more than 60 million members and over 170 million reviews and opinions of hotels restaurants attractions and other travel related businesses . tripadvisor media group operates 25 travel brands including tripadvisor airfarewatchdog bookingbuddy cruise critic family vacation critic flipkey gateguru 5 holiday lettings holiday watchdog independent traveler jetsetter lafourchette niumba onetime seatguru smartertravel tingo travel library travelpod viator and virtualtourist . tripadvisor operates websites internationally in such places as austria australia brazil canada china under the brand www.tripadvisor.cn denmark france germany greece india indonesia ireland italy japan mexico the netherlands norway poland portugal russia serbia singapore spain sweden thailand turkey the u.k. and the u.s. history edit in february 2000 tripadvisor was founded by stephen kaufer langley steinert and several others . kaufer says the original idea wasn t a user generated social media site to swap reviews . rather we started as a site where we were focused more on those official words from guidebooks or newspapers or magazines . we also had a button in the very beginning that said visitors add your own review and boy did that just take off . pretty soon the number of average consumer reviews far surpassed the number of professional reviews . that is when the site really turned into this collection of what the normal traveler was saying wherever they were going . 6 original financing was obtained from flagship ventures the bollard group and private investors . 7 in 2004 the company was purchased by iac interactivecorp . 2 in august 2005 iac spun off its travel group of businesses under the expedia inc. name . 8 headquarters in needham ma in april 2009 tripadvisor launched its official site in china www.daodao.com . since then it has indexed more than 20 000 hotels and restaurants information and customer reviews and made top lists becoming one of the biggest travel websites as of july 2011 . 9 in september 2010 smartertravel part of tripadvisor media group launched sniqueaway now jetsetter the first members only site where each travel deal is endorsed by the people . 10 in march 2011 tripadvisor informed all registered tripadvisor members that an unauthorized third party had stolen some of tripadvisor s email list and might use it to create spam messages . no passwords or other information was stolen . this happened shortly before many other companies reported similar thefts of the addresses on their email lists . 11 12 in april 2011 it was announced that expedia would split into two publicly traded companies by spinning off the tripadvisor brand of travel sites . according to expedia ceo dara khosrowshahi the move allows the two businesses to be pure plays and to operate with the proper amount of focus to grow respectively . 13 according to a july 2011 phocuswright survey of 3 641 respondents solicited at random through a pop up invitation link on tripadvisor.com and commissioned by trip advisor 98 % of participants found that tripadvisor s hotel reviews accurately reflect the experience . 14 in december 2011 tripadvisor was spun off from expedia in a public offering . 15 tripadvisor states it is the world s largest travel site with nearly 280 million unique monthly visitors . 16 in april 2012 the company launched a connection to facebook that lets users select reviews from people in their social graph . 17 in august 2014 a survey found that tripadvisor was the most widely recognized used and trusted travel website . 18 in october 2014 trip advisor released a new feature just for you offering tailored hotel recommendations based on the user s preferences and search history on the site . 19 in 2015 tripadvisor started letting users not only rate places but tag them saying for example that a place offers brunch is open on sunday or offers delivery takeout etc. 20 acquisitions edit in may 2007 tripadvisor acquired smarter travel media operator of smartertravel.com and bookingbuddy.com ; seatguru.com ; travelpod.com ; and travel library.com . 21 also in may 2007 tripadvisor acquired the independent traveler inc. publisher of cruise critic.com and independenttraveler.com 22 in february 2008 tripadvisor acquired holiday watchdog a user generated travel site in the u.k. 23 in july 2008 tripadvisor acquired virtualtourist a travel website with reportedly over 1 million registered members and onetime.com a travel comparison site . 24 in july 2008 tripadvisor acquired a majority stake in flipkey.com a vacation rental website . 25 in october 2009 tripadvisor purchased kuxun.cn china s second largest consumer travel site and hotel and flight search engine . 26 kuxun was later sold to meituan . 27 in june 2010 tripadvisor acquired the united kingdom s largest independent vacation rental website holidaylettings.co.uk . 28 in july 2011 tripadvisor announced its acquisition of where i ve been a chicago based travel facebook app for an undisclosed sum . 29 in october 2012 tripadvisor announced its acquisition of wanderfly an nyc based travel inspiration website for an undisclosed sum . 30 in april 2013 tripadvisor announced its acquisition of jetsetter an nyc flash sale site . 31 in june 2013 tripadvisor announced its acquisition of gateguru an nyc based flight and airport information mobile app for an undisclosed sum . 32 in july 2014 tripadvisor announced its acquisition of viator for approximately 200 million . 33 in july 2014 tripadvisor announced its acquisition of la fourchette thefork.com for 240m 34 in january 2015 tripadvisor announced its acquisition of iens a dutch restaurant review website and seatme a dutch website for reserving seats in a restaurant . according to tripadvisor this is to stimulate growth in the netherlands . 35 36 in april 2015 tripadvisor acquired portuguese startup besttables . 37 in may 2015 tripadvisor acquired australian startup dimmi for 25 million . 38 controversy and fraudulent reviews edit tripadvisor has been the subject of controversy for allowing unsubstantiated anonymous reviews to be posted about any hotel b & b inn or restaurant . 39 approximately 30 hotels have been blacklisted by tripadvisor for suspicious reviews including a cornwall hotel that bribed guests to leave positive reviews of the hotel . 40 tripadvisor has stated that reviews are not posted to the website instantly but are subject to a verification process which considers the ip address and email address of the author and tries to detect any suspicious patterns or obscene or abusive language . 41 the website also allows the community of users to report suspicious content which is then assessed by a team of quality assurance specialists and tripadvisor alerts the owner or manager of a tripadvisor listed establishment whenever a review is posted on their listing . in september 2011 the uk advertising standards authority asa launched a formal investigation into tripadvisor after receiving a complaint submitted by online investigations company kwikchex that its claims to provide trustworthy and honest reviews from travelers are false . 42 the asa found that tripadvisor should not claim or imply that all its reviews were from real travellers or were honest real or trusted 43 and as a result of the investigation tripadvisor was ordered to remove the slogan reviews you can trust from its uk web site . 44 it changed its hotel review section slogan to reviews from our community . tripadvisor stated that the branding change had been planned for some time and that changes began in june 2011 before the asa investigation . 45 46 asa commented that it was concerned that consumers might be fooled by fraudulent posts since the entries could be made without any form of verification but recognised that tripadvisor used advanced and highly effective fraud systems in an attempt to identify and remove fake content . in 2012 an action was brought in a sheriff court in scotland by a guesthouse owner who claimed damages for malicious statements . tripadvisor asserted that the scottish courts lacked jurisdiction . 47 the outcome of this case was called a landmark victory as the pursuer plaintiff secured two points of law in the uk 48 tripadvisor conceded that it could be sued in the uk s jurisdictions having previously claimed to be outside the remit of the scottish legal system because it is based in massachusetts ; tripadvisor s terms of use constituted a contract which was actionable enforceable by the business being reviewed . the case was found to involve issues relating to the unfair terms in consumer contracts act 1977 these issues were referred to a higher court in stornoway . in 2012 tripadvisor was fined 80 000 by the u.s. department of transportation for violating new fair trading regulations requiring taxes and fees to be shown for prices quoted for airfares . 49 in march 2014 tripadvisor s chinese site came under scrutiny because kwikchex uncovered that a reviewer had reviewed 51 parisian restaurants in one month while also reviewing 50 hotels in other countries . 50 in december 2014 the italian antitrust authority fined tripadvisor 500 000 for improper commercial practices on the tripadvisor website . 51 52 53 the italian authority stated that tripadvisor and its italian arm should stop publishing misleading information about the sources of the reviews . in june 2015 a fake restaurant created by a newspaper rose to the top of the site s rankings in italy . 54 an ex hotel manager at meriton says that guests were offered inducements to change ratings they left on the site . 55 dietmar doering a german hotelier based in sri lanka accused tripadvisor for its malicious reviews of his resort the cosy beach in marawila . he claimed he was compelled to take legal action for the estimated damages of us 500 000 . 56 see also edit expedia inc. tripadvisor s former parent company references edit a b about tripadvisor . tripadvisor.com . retrieved jul 22 2015 . a b schaal dennis 2016 . the definitive oral history of online travel . skift . retrieved 15 june 2016 . annual report pdf . tripadvisor llc . fact sheet . tripadvisor llc . retrieved 2009 12 01 . tripadvisor buys flight information app provider gateguru . the wall street journal . interview with stephen kaufer . bbc radio 4 the bottom line . october 16 2014 . iac acquires tripadvisor inc. . flagship ventures . 2004 03 16 . retrieved 2009 07 15 . iac completes spin off of expedia inc. . expedia inc. 2005 08 09 . retrieved 2010 01 14 . about daodao.com . daodao.com . 2011 07 01 . retrieved 2011 11 22 . places to go in milan . retrieved 13 march 2015 . tripadvisor hacked member emails stolen . financial post . 2011 03 24 . retrieved 2013 10 29 . more information . expedia plans to split into two companies . reuters . 2011 04 08 . retrieved 2011 05 12 . dennis schaal november 22 2011 . expedia