Airbnb Boosts Marketing Advantage Over Rivals in 2nd Quarter
Photo Caption: Airbnb spent just 18 percent of revenue on sales and marketing in the second quarter of 2022. Pictured are guests in a Mexico City Airbnb.
Skift Take
Booking Holdings and Expedia are changing their marketing strategies, a healthy development. Meanwhile, Airbnb widened its marketing edge.
If one hadn't become so accustomed to it over the last few years, then Airbnb's sales and marketing advantage over its major rivals would be stunning. Then again, Airbnb widened that gap in the second quarter.
In the accompanying chart, Skift examined online travel and short-term rental players sales and marketing spend as a percentage of revenue in the second quarter, and Airbnb's brand advantage was blinding.
Airbnb shelled out just 18 percent of revenue in the June quarter on sales and marketing while Booking Holdings allocated 51.3 percent and Expedia Group 53.9 percent.
Executives at Airbnb routinely point out that, for the public, "Airbnb" has become a noun and a verb, and that's apparent when one sees how relatively little Airbnb spends on sales and marketing. Executives at Expedia and Booking Holdings readily acknowledge that Airbnb has created a great brand, and they labor to get a semblance of the direct traffic to their websites and apps th
