A subscription service gets canceled: Why didn’t Tripadvisor Plus pan out?

Tripadvisor Plus, the subscription service offering discounted hotels and perks for $99 per year that Tripadvisor is closing, was both a “brilliant strategic idea” and “operationally catastrophic,” said Robert Cole, Phocuswright’s senior research analyst of lodging and leisure travel.

“It should have been great,” Cole said. “It really could have been great.”

Analysts say the shutdown of the struggling Plus service may be part of an attempt to streamline Tripadvisor after its parent company said last month that it was exploring a potential sale of the company. 

When it launched in 2021, Plus promised an ecosystem built on Tripadvisor’s global platform where consumers paid an annual fee they would likely recoup via discounts with just a single booking. With “skin in the game” via the subscription fee, Cole said, consumers would be more likely to repeatedly book on Plus. 

Instead, Tripadvisor said this month it would shutter Plus, which came as no surprise to Cole, a subscriber, who…