Stephen Kaufer co-founded TripAdvisor in 2000 with the mission “to help travellers around the world plan and have the perfect trip.” Under his leadership, TripAdvisor has grown into the world’s largest travel site, with more than 50 million unique monthly visitors, 20 million members and over 60 million reviews and opinions.

This travel review website has gathered an unmatched library of reviews from people online, and in doing so has revolutionised the hospitality and tourism industries with hotels and restaurants paying close attention to their reputation on TripAdvisor. With visitors planning trips based on its recommendations - a run of good or bad reviews can mean make or break for some.

Stephen has also built TripAdvisor, Inc., which includes 19 other travel brands, and has expanded the TripAdvisor brand into 30 countries.

Stephen and his co-founders sold TripAdvisor to the InterActive Corporation in 2004, which later spun off its travel businesses to Expedia, Inc. TripAdvisor was owned by Expedia until December 2011, at which time it became its own publically traded company.

TripAdvisor is now the world’s largest travel site enabling travellers to plan and book the perfect trip. It offers advice from travellers and a wide variety of travel choices and planning features with seamless links to booking tools that check hundreds of websites to find great hotel prices. TripAdvisor branded sites make up the largest travel community in the world, reaching 315 million unique monthly visitors and more than 200 million reviews and opinions covering more than 4.5 million accommodations, restaurants and attractions.

In addition TripAdvisor also includes TripAdvisor for Business which is a dedicated division that provides the tourism industry access to millions of monthly TripAdvisor visitors.

The site now operates in an incredible 45 countries worldwide. An extraordinary growth in such a short time.

Stephen was honoured by the British Travel & Hospitality Hall of Fame in 2015.