Searches for Airbnb are at an all time high

While Airbnb and Booking are surging, other travel brands continue to struggle

In a recent interview, Airbnb founder Brian Chesky said:

“Not surprising, we’ve spent twelve years building Airbnb’s business and lost almost all of it in a matter of four to six weeks. The travel we knew is over, and it’s never coming back…No one quite knows what it will look like, but I have a couple of thoughts. I do think that instead of the world population traveling to only a few cities and staying in big tourist districts, I think you’re going to see a redistribution of where people travel”

He also referred to how the remote work trend could benefit Airbnb:

I think more people are going to work remotely and work from home also could be work from any home.

The implications of this potential redistribution of travel are wide ranging. It could also have an impact on the channels that customers use to make their hotels and accommodations bookings. If search term popularity is any indication, there is also a redistribution of market share in favor of Airbnb and Booking. They are both not only ahead of other intermediaries and suppliers, but they are seeing a strong growth in searches while other brands remain flat.

Let’s look at worldwide search activity as measured by Google trends for 5 travel brand search terms in the last 12 months: Airbnb, Booking, Expedia, Marriott and Hilton.

Google Trends shows how frequently a given search term is entered into Google’s search engine relative to the site’s total search volume over a given period of time. 100 = highest search activity for the search terms being compared

Booking and Airbnb are the most popular search terms throughout the entire period, but since April 2020, they have seen a dramatic increase while Expedia, Marriott and Hilton have stayed flat.

Searches for Airbnb have seen a particularly strong surge. Not only are they now at their highest level in the las 12 months, but their growth has outpaced all other brands. The following graph shows how searches for Airbnb compare with searches for the other 4 brands. From April on, Airbnb is gaining “search share” vs every brand, most notably vs Expedia, Marriott and Hilton.

For example, 200% means that Airbnb has 200% more searches than the brand in question, 0% means that Airbnb has the same amount of searches than the brand, etc…

Let’s now compare search activity for Airbnb, Booking and the leading OTA and hotel group in France, Spain, Italy, USA, Mexico and Argentina:

France: Airbnb, Booking, Opodo, Accor
Spain: Airbnb, Booking, eDreams, Melia
Italy: Airbnb, Booking, eDreams, Best Western
United States: Airbnb, Booking, Expedia, Marriott
Mexico: Airbnb, Booking, Best Day, Marriott
Argentina: Airbnb, Booking, Best Day, Marriott

Conclusions from the country specific graphs:

• Searches for Airbnb are at a 12 month high in every country except Mexico and Argentina.
• Searches for Airbnb and Booking are growing strongly since April in France, Spain and Italy. Search activity for the leading OTAs and hotel groups is not.
• In Spain and Italy, Booking is more searched than Airbnb and it’s also seeing a steeper search growth since April.
• The United States is the only country where searches for Booking are lower than for the leading OTA (Expedia) and hotel group (Marriott).
• In the three European markets, Airbnb and Booking have the highest search activity and are greatly increasing their advantage versus the leading local OTAs.
• Argentina is the only country where the OTA (Despegar) has the highest search activity among the 4 brands compared. In US and Mexico there are more searches for the local OTA (Expedia, Best Day) than for Booking.