The top four online travel agencies in the world spent $4.08 billion on marketing activities in the first quarter of 2024, with Expedia investing 57% of its quarterly turnover of $1.7 billion.
First-quarter financials from four of the world’s largest online travel agencies show that Expedia Group, Booking Holdings, Airbnb and Trip.com Group launched in 2024 as they finished 2023 – a year in which they spent a record amount on brand promotion and customer acquisition.
The four brands spent a total of $4.08 billion on sales and marketing (which Booking Holdings reported only as marketing) in the first three months of this year, a 10.6% increase over the $3.69 billion spent in the first quarter of 2023, when the brands spent a total of $16.8 billion for the year.
While not an accurate measure of a business model, marketing spend is an indication of the challenge OTAs face in attracting bookings while competing with each other and with suppliers such as hotels and airlines struggling to increase direct business.
First quarter marketing spend for large OTAs averaged 37% of their revenues, and this average is not evenly distributed.
Expedia Group is the one spending the most among the four companies, as it paid $1.65 billion for sales and marketing services in the first quarter, up 11% year-over-year and equal to 56.9% of revenue for the quarter, which is marginally higher year-over-year.
Booking Holdings, meanwhile, is on par with the average. The $1.6 billion spent on marketing in the first quarter was up 6% year over year and 36.4% of revenue. This represents a drop from the 40.2% of revenue spent last year in the first quarter.
Airbnb spent $514 million on sales and marketing from January to March this year, a 14.2% increase over the same period last year and 24% of revenue, down slightly from the 24.8% it spent in the first quarter last year.
The biggest change compared to last year was seen in the Trip.com group. After reducing spending from 2020 to 2022 due to recurring travel restrictions caused by COVID, the company allocated $1.3 billion for sales and marketing in 2023 as the restrictions were lifted.
While still limited compared to the spending level of the rest, the $320 million spent by Trip.com Group in the first quarter of this year represented a 32% year-over-year increase, the largest percentage increase among OTA giants. However, that amount represented a comparatively modest 19% of revenue and was down 1% from the fourth quarter.
