For someone who runs one of he world's most global companies – it has websites in 27 countries worldwide (20 different languages) and 75% of its traffic now comes from outside the US – TripAdvisor's founder Stephen Kaufer sheepishly admits he hasn't been to Asia.
"I travel a lot but I haven't made it to Asia," he says on the sidelines of the 11th Global Travel & Tourism Summit in Las Vegas last week.

Kaufer, I guess, is an extremely busy man. His empire, TripAdvisor Media Group, attracts more than 50 million unique visitors across 18 brands.
TripAdvisor-branded sites alone have more than 40 million unique monthly visitors, 20 million members, and over 45 million reviews and opinions.
Kaufer explained later in an interview with PhoCusWright CEO Philip Wolf that the idea behind owning 18 travel media companies was ""so that we circulate the audience".
"We have a cruise vertical so that if people want to read cruise reocmmendations, they have a site to go to."
And while he says hotel reviews dominate now in the millions of reviews it carries, TripAdvisor is expanding into destinations, car rentals, vacation rentals and restaurants.
Of these though, the next big thing is restaurants, he says, using the "Near Me" button and allowing customers to read reviews about local restaurants and places.
Kaufer says he had no idea TripAdvisor would become as influential as it has when he founded it in 2000. It started with a trip he was planning on his own and he was looking for recommendations. But everything looked the same, especially the hotel photos.
Full story:
www.webintravel.com/news/kaufer-next-big-thing-is-restaurants-and-google-not-facebook-keeps-me-awake_1731