UPDATE: Bank of America Raises PO on TripAdvisor on Increased Click-Based Advertising

Bank of America analyst Nat Schindler published a report on TripAdvisors

that reiterated its Buy rating and raised the price objective from $50 to $58. Bank of America reported that, “Our study, which reviewed 350 global hotel listings, revealed hotels continue to under spend on TripAdvisor with only 35% of U.S. (down 200bps) and 20% of international hotels (up 500bps) purchasing clickbased advertising. As hotels become more aggressive, we believe TRIP should see click-based pricing increase and the arbitrage that online travel agencies (OTAs) receive should close. Note, our 2014 estimates remain conservative because they include the 3Q13 brand campaign being replicated in 2014, but in both years, we are assuming no incremental revenue from the $40mn+ in advertising.” shares of TripAdvisors closed at $52.40 on Friday.