Tripadvisor, Inc. TRIP
Tripadvisor trades at 6.5x EBITDA, half its peers, because investors still view it as a controlled legacy Tripadvisor.com — sell TheFork, fix Viator margins, revitalize the brand, or take the $18-19/share bid.
Thesis
Tripadvisor is misunderstood as a controlled, legacy Tripadvisor.com business, when in fact its dual-class structure was eliminated in April 2025 and Viator plus TheFork now generate nearly 60% of revenue. Despite owning the leading global experiences marketplace (Viator, $1B+ revenue, 20% CAGR) and Europe's largest dining platform (TheFork, $249M FY26E), the stock trades at 6.5x CY26E EBITDA versus a peer average of 12.4x. Starboard argues three levers unlock the discount: sell TheFork at ~5x revenue (Resy/Tock/SevenRooms precedents), push Viator to OTA-like 25-30% margins as the CFO himself suggested, and revitalize Brand Tripadvisor by cutting personnel costs and monetizing its LLM-cited dataset. Pro forma, Tripadvisor would trade at just 2.5x EBITDA — and a strategic bidder already offered $18-19/share in January 2025.
SCQA
Tripadvisor owns three market-leading online travel businesses — Brand Tripadvisor, Viator and TheFork — generating $2.1B in FY26E revenue across travel guidance, experiences and dining reservations.
The market still prices Tripadvisor as a controlled legacy dot-com at 6.5x EBITDA, ignoring that the dual-class structure ended in April 2025 and experiences now drive 60% of revenue.
Starboard demands Tripadvisor sell TheFork at a premium revenue multiple, lift Viator to OTA-like 25-30% EBITDA margins, transform Brand Tripadvisor's cost base, and evaluate the recent strategic bid.
A pro forma Tripadvisor trades at just 2.5x EBITDA versus peers at 12.4x — and a strategic bidder offered $18-19/share for the whole company in January 2025.
The three reasons
- 1
Tripadvisor trades at just 6.5x CY26E EBITDA versus 12.4x online-travel peer average
- 2
Dual-class structure collapsed in April 2025 — first time independent in 20+ years
- 3
Sum-of-parts unlocks drive pro forma multiple to ~2.5x EBITDA after TheFork sale + Viator margin fix
Primary demands
- Explore a sale of TheFork at a premium revenue multiple similar to Resy/Tock/SevenRooms precedents
- Meaningfully improve Viator's margins toward OTA-like 25-30% EBITDA and accelerate growth to Rule of 40
- Transform Brand Tripadvisor by cutting personnel costs, stabilizing growth and monetizing its data/LLM-cited content
- Evaluate strategic sale of the entire company given recent $18-19/share takeover bid
KPIs cited
Pattern membership
Where this document fits across the library's 12 rhetorical / structural patterns.
Precedents cited
- Resy / American Express acquisition (May 2019)
- Tock / American Express acquisition (June 2024)
- SevenRooms / DoorDash acquisition (May 2025)
- Reddit / Google $60M AI data licensing deal
- News Corp / OpenAI $250M licensing deal
- Reddit / OpenAI $70M licensing deal
Notable slides (7)
Notes
Conference presentation delivered at the 13D Monitor 2025 Active-Passive Investor Summit (Oct 2025). No stake disclosed in the deck and no individual author named — firm credit only. Deck uses the CFO's September 2025 quote ('we can achieve OTA-like margins') as corroborative rather than contradictory — hence uses_ceo_quote_contradiction=false. Structure is classic Starboard: two 'misconceptions' setup (controlled company, legacy internet) followed by three operational levers (TheFork sale, Viator margin expansion, Brand transformation), with stair-step pro forma multiple charts at 4.5x → 3.0x → 2.5x. Closes with a strategic-sale kicker citing the $18-19/share January 2025 bid. Campaign phase set to initial_thesis as this appears to be Starboard's first public Tripadvisor presentation.