It turns out the sky isn’t the limit for travel site TripAdvisor. According to Forbes, TripAdvisor took in $1.246 billion in 2014, up 32% from 2013. Despite being the #1 travel site on the web, they are still growing at an incredible rate. To get a better understanding of TripAdvisor’s success, Mashable’s Corrine Bagish sat down with TripAdvisor’s Chief Marketing Officer, Barbara Messing. The whole Q&A is fascinating, and you read the rest of it here, but one quote really stuck with me when Messing was asked about some of the current trends in marketing:
“Travel is an inherently on-the-go experience, and mobile can create incredible contextual experiences for travelers. Plus, no one goes anywhere without their smartphone. With our app, for example, we have "near me now" functionality so that when you walk out of a museum in Paris you can immediately see the restaurants nearby that are highly rated by travelers. We also just launched a travel timeline for the app that allows travelers to see every stop on their journey in real-time, as they experience it. Over the coming years we're going to see a whole set of interesting features launch that make mobile an even greater part of the travel planning, booking, on-the-trip and sharing experience.”
We’ve talked a lot about how important mobile marketing has become, and how it will a strong investment in mobile will increase a company’s profits, but this quote may be the most telling. Here, we have one of the most profitable companies on the web in TripAdvisor raving about how mobile marketing is one of the biggest trends in business. This company is worth billions, and one of the reasons for that is that they have taken advantage of the mobile opportunities presented to them. So if you’re a business owner, and you are still on the fence about a mobile app, stop doing yourself a disservice and get one today!