Tripadvisor unwinds Viator merger and cuts Cruise Critic staff 60%

Tripadvisor has unwound a restructuring that combined its "things to do" and Viator experiences teams under one roof in November 2025. The two businesses are back to separate teams, close to how they were organised before those changes, according to a source familiar with the company's operations.

In a November 4 email to employees, President Kristen Dalton wrote that "experiences will be singularly focused on the Viator and Bokun brands with a focus on growth." Bokun is the company's back-end reservations technology for experiences operators. The things to do business will now have its own team.

That things to do unit mainly generates leads for Viator, the company's principal experiences brand and the focus of its investment. Viator's operations now have a separate team, with, as Dalton put it, "far less overlap between them and fewer shared services."

The company told investors the merged structure "has not proven out as we expected." Across the past 12 months, bookings through Viator and partner channels rose in the low teens, while the Tripadvisor channel fell by high single digits. Third-quarter experiences revenue fell 3% year over year to $284.4 million.

Tripadvisor said on November 5 that it would cut 425 employee and contractor roles in its legacy Hotels and Other segment. That is roughly 60% of roles tied to hotel metasearch, display and sponsored ads, flights, cruise and car rentals. Around 150 of those people will move to Viator.

The cuts amount to a net reduction of about 275 positions, which the Boston Globe puts at around 17% of the workforce. Cruise Critic, which sources said is profitable, is being cut by 60% to roughly 20 employees. All but one editorial staffer is leaving the publication.

The restructuring is expected to save about $40 million a year, against charges of $15 million to $20 million. It lands amid a broader leadership overhaul, with several senior executives heading for the door in the coming months.

Chief executive Matt Goldberg steps down in February, and chief financial officer Michael Noonan leaves on December 31. Kristen Dalton becomes interim CFO on January 1, adding to her presidential duties. Goldberg announced the company-wide restructuring at an all-hands meeting before Dalton's email.

An activist investor on the board

Activist investor Starboard Value disclosed a 9% stake in July 2025 and, in March, gained four of the ten seats on Tripadvisor's board. The company has said no option is off the table for monetising Viator.

We reported on Marriott's worldwide corporate job cuts, which came as its third-quarter fees jumped 14%. Tripadvisor's reductions arrive with no such tailwind in the experiences line, where the company itself describes the earlier merger as a bet that did not land.

Viator is now the centre of the company's investment, while the legacy Tripadvisor channel declines. The 3% fall in quarterly experiences revenue is the cleaner measure: the brand the company is backing grew, and the channel it merged everything into did not keep pace.

What the cuts mean for Cruise Critic

Cruise Critic's editorial operation is being reduced to a single writer. The publication, which sources said turns a profit, drops to around 20 employees in total. The cut strips the brand of almost all of the people who produced its reviews and guides.

With one editorial staffer left, Cruise Critic will rely on a thin reporting line. Tripadvisor has not said how it will run the title, so whether it values traffic and community over original reviews is a question the company has not answered.

Cutting into a profitable brand while pulling back from a failed merger is a move that fits the pressure from Starboard, though no source ties the two together directly. The company has not said which of the 425 roles fall at Cruise Critic beyond the 60% figure.

With four of ten board seats held by Starboard and both the chief executive and finance chief exiting, the experiences business operates under an unresolved ownership question. Tripadvisor has said no option is off the table for Viator, and has not named one.

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Images: Tripadvisor