Dive Brief:
- Shares for online travel platform Tripadvisor slumped by roughly 23% on Thursday following an underwhelming third quarter and news that both its CEO and CFO would be departing at the top of next year.
- The Needham, Mass.-based company’s board of directors “determined that a leadership transition was in the best interests of the Company and its shareholders, and Chief Executive Officer Matt Goldberg agreed,” the company announced Thursday in a securities filing. Goldberg will step down from his roles as CEO and president effective Feb. 16, according to the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
- Separately, Tripadvisor’s CFO Michael Noonan informed the company that he would be leaving to pursue another opportunity. Noonan will continue in his role to ensure a smooth transition until his departure on Dec. 31, Tripadvisor said. Kristen Dalton, the company’s current chief strategy and operations officer, will step in as its interim CFO on Jan. 1, according to a Thursday press release.
Dive Insight:
The business, which offers travel and hotel booking services, has engaged an executive search firm to identify candidates for Goldberg’s successor and “lead the company through its next chapter,” the CEO, who will also leave his post on Tripadvisor’s board, said Thursday during the company’s third quarter earnings call.
Both Goldberg and Noonan are leaving after about four years in their respective roles, having joined the company in 2022 when the business was still recovering from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Goldberg said.
Under their respective tenures, the company has moved to execute on a turnaround strategy with the aim of reducing costs and simplifying its capital structure. That’s included a pivot to place its experiences segment — where customers can book tours, attractions and other local activities when traveling — at the heart of the business, Goldberg said according to a transcript.
The segment has scaled to almost $5 billion in gross bookings, and “now contributes the majority of revenue for the group,” he said.
However, the travel booking platform has struggled to shake off operational and economic headwinds as it embarked on the plan with stagnating sales, online traffic challenges related to artificial intelligence and changing consumer behaviors hampering its financial performance and leading to rising investor concerns.
In February, activist investor Starboard Value, which owns a 9% stake in the business, sent a letter to Tripadvisor management expressing concerns over its underperformance and critiquing leadership for failing to move quickly or decisively to address ongoing challenges.
“Simply put, management and the Board’s decisions have been abysmal,” the letter stated, noting that Tripadvisor shares since Goldberg’s appointment in 2022 had fallen by 50% as of data from February 2026. Over the past five years, its shares have fallen by nearly 80%, according to Nasdaq data, while year-to-date they have slumped by approximately 51%.
In May, Starboard and Tripadvisor entered into an agreement which expanded Tripadvisor’s board from eight directors to 10, according to a company release. Under the agreement, the company also made provisions to appoint four new directors, appointing two in May and noting the remaining two appointments will take place at its annual shareholder meeting.
The travel site has continued to see challenges such as weather disruptions and “persistent SEO headwinds” related to AI hurt bookings, Noonan said during the call.
For the three months ended Sept. 30, Tripadvisor reported a net loss from continuing operations of $316.9 million compared to nearly $49 million in the prior year period, a jump primarily due to an impairment charge it recorded in its “Hotels and Others” segment, according to its earnings report.
The company recorded a non-cash impairment charge of almost $370 million in the segment, “primarily driven by a sustained decline in financial performance and reduction in forecasted profitability,” it said. The H&O segment covers hotels, media and advertising and areas such as revenue from flights and vacation rentals, according to a 2025 breakdown.
Also Thursday alongside its earnings results, Tripadvisor announced a global restructuring plan largely aimed at simplifying the H&O” segment, which includes the “reduction of roles across non-core revenue lines,” according to its Q3 earnings report.
As part of the restructuring, the travel site will also be making “accelerated investments” into its experience segment, and will role certain product, engineering and data analytics roles under the remit of that segment, according to the release.
Tripadvisor expects the restructuring will result in total annualized gross savings of about $40 million. It also anticipates it will incur between $15 million to $20 million in restructuring and other related costs primarily in the fourth quarter of 2026.
“The action in Hotels and Other is designed to run the segment at a smaller scale and allows us to retain our focus on the most important and valuable aspects of our brand, our content, community, and trust,” Goldberg said.
