Whether you love or hate TripAdvisor, which began trading today as a public company on Nasdaq, you can trace its origins, in a way, to a Mexico vacation and CEO Stephen Kaufer's wife.
Kaufer, visiting Manhattan for the debut, recalled during a conference call how he had picked up some Mexico brochures in the late 1990s and did some additional Internet research about the hotel possibilities at the suggestion of his wife.
Kaufer says he found some useful information about the upcoming Mexico trip on the Web from a source which was a precursor of a travel blog.
The couple then used the research as the basis for upgrading to a particular property, had a great vacation and on the flight home, Kaufer's wife suggested there must be a better way of doing trip-planning.
That thought evidently provided Kaufer with a little travel -- or, one should say, entrepreneurial -- inspiration.
Kaufer co-founded TripAdvisor in 2000. TripAdvisor was acquired by IAC in 2004, included in IAC's Expedia spinoff in 2005, and 50 million user reviews later, TripAdvisor had its coming out party as a public company today.
This was not an IPO and there was no cash infusion, with Kaufer saying, "we don't need any money. We are a very cash-flow positive business."
People or companies which held shares of Expedia common stock prior to the spinoff received one share of TripAdvisor stock and one share of Expedia stock for every two shares of Expedia stock they previously held.
At mid-afternoon in the US, TripAdvisor stock, under the stock symbol TRIP, was trading at $28.42, down from a high of $30.
So, now what?
Kaufer says for "consumers the basic answer is nothing changes" as the company will continue to be active in user reviews, mobile, social travel and global expansion.
He said the spinoff unlocks shareholder value, and TripAdvisor no longer has to ask Expedia for permission on initiatives it wants to pursue.
"We're no longer having to ask the question, are we allowed to do this?" Kaufer said.
In response to questions, Kaufer said TripAdvisor has been investing in technology to screen out any reviews which may have been planted.
He acknowledged that some companies are getting more sophisticated in developing ways to taint the hotel-review process and are operating "in the black or gray area."
"We are onto them, sometimes we are interacting with them..." Kaufer said.
When hotels collaborate with these rogue companies or try to game the review process themselves, TripAdvisor first warns them and then penalizes them, Kaufer said.
Kaufer, acknowledging that the penalties can be severe, and referred to it as a "carrot and stick approach."
"We do know it happens," Kaufer added, referring to review manipulation.
However, Kaufer argued that TripAdvisor's scale -- and the amount of new traveler reviews being penned -- "dominates the conversation" when it comes to any bogus reviews.
He cited a July 2011 TripAdvisor-sponsored PhoCusWright study which found that 98% of respondents believe that TripAdvisor's hotel reviews accurately portrayed their guest experience.
Asked what percentage of TripAdvisor reviews are fake, Kaufer acknowledged that the company asks itself the same question and it's a "tough question to answer."
For example, sometimes a consumer may unwittingly hit the "submit" button twice when writing a positive hotel review or a guest will write a review from a computer in the hotel lobby, Kaufer says.
He added that TripAdvisor doesn't penalize hotels when these sorts of things occur.
TripAdvisor's spinoff occurs as the Advertisting Standards Authority in the UK is investigating the company's review practices and a complaint has been lodged with the US Federal Trade Commission.