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Airbnb Fell Flat Last Year on a Marketing Plan Inspired by Booking.com, CEO Chesky Reveals During IPO Roadshow

Dennis Schaal photo
Dennis Schaal

Photo Credit: Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky (pictured) offered some regrets about a marketing strategy in 2019 during a roadshow presentation for its upcoming IPO held on Thursday, December 3.  Asa Mathat for Vox Media

Skift Take

Airbnb played the Booking.com-like performance marketing game in 2019, and got burned as losses piled up and revenue growth didn't keep pace. A centerpiece of Airbnb's roadshow is to show that its brand advantage and repeat visitor dynamics mean it doesn't have to deploy the same strategy as its peers.

Airbnb dabbled with the Booking.com performance marketing playbook in 2019, and it didn't go so well. That's why during one of Airbnb's virtual IPO roadshow sessions with management Thursday, CEO Brian Chesky expressed disappointment with Airbnb's incremental marketing spend in 2019, saying the company didn't see the returns it expected, Skift has learned. In 2019, the last full year before the pandemic struck, Airbnb's sales and marketing as a percentage of revenue increased 3.6 percentage points to 33.7 percent. Airbnb's actual sales and marketing spend increased 47.2 percent to $1.62 billion in 2019, which the company described as an investment year, compared with 2018.

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