School ends and travel begins – ABNB/BKNG/EXPE

This was first published June 14, in our weekly newsletter Apptopia Insight. To receive insights like this weekly, sign up here.

• Expedia (EXPE) – Expedia has seen YoY growth pick up as the quarter has progressed – for April, its main Expedia app had low single digit YoY growth, but it has been showing double digit growth since then.  Notably, Vrbo is on fire in May and June.
• Airbnb (ABNB) – After a hot April, Airbnb’s mobile activity has cooled.  Still, it is trending for an above-consensus quarter. 
• Booking.com (BKNG) – Booking.com has struggled for traction this quarter, though its main booking.com app is at least trending up from where it started.

---

Travel app trends

School is out! At least, it will be very soon in Massachusetts and already was let out in populous states like California and Texas. Those poor NYC kids have to wait two more weeks…hang in there! After all, education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire (Yeats).   

Meanwhile parents (and high school seniors!) are not thinking about pails and fires, they are thinking about summer vacation. Cue the OTA apps! The space has trended up since April (save ABNB and Priceline), with Expedia standing out. EXPE owns Vrbo, which has caught fire of late, showing 27% YoY growth in DAUs so far in June:

With the main Expedia app also having a strong May and June, our data looks like it is trending ahead of consensus:  

EXPE company-wide DAUs (worldwide) vs Room Nights

Consider this fair warning – we also saw a strong 2Q23 and were ahead of results that quarter.   

Meanwhile, BKNG cannot even fill the pail, much less light the fire. June app downloads (worldwide) are -24% YoY so far, which I suppose is better than -25% in May, but still a tough setup this far into the quarter. Maybe they need less Tina Fey and more Alec Baldwin?

Questions on the underlying data included in this analysis?