Booking.com Increases Web Traffic Lead Over Peers: Q2 Earnings Preview

Website traffic and conversion data (the percentage of visits that end in a purchase) were strong for Booking.com in Q2 2022, which could translate into strong financial performance when the company reports Q2 results on August 3. The online travel agency (OTA) industry as a whole is seeing steady growth, but Booking.com has performed better than its peers in recent months.

Key takeaways

• Q2 visits to booking.com worldwide (desktop & mobile web) rose 32% over Q1 and increased 50.5% from the second quarter of 2021, according to Similarweb estimates
• Second quarter traffic was flat against Q2 of 2019, highlighting the return to pre-pandemic levels of demand
• From the pandemic low in April 2020, to June 2022 web traffic to booking.com was 553% higher
• Booking.com seems to be gaining momentum against peers, with faster web traffic growth and better customer engagement

Booking.com monthly web traffic looks good for Q2

Looking at monthly web traffic for Q2, booking.com saw 32% growth versus Q1 and 50.5% growth versus the second quarter of 2021. Comparing the quarter against the pre-pandemic second quarter of 2019, traffic was roughly even, highlighting that demand has recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic. Monthly traffic has also grown steadily since the start of 2022.  Particularly notable is that traffic in June 2022 was 552% higher than April 2020, the low recorded during the pandemic, and just 2% lower than June 2019. Demand looks pretty robust.

The entire OTA industry seeing growth, but booking.com outperforming

Looking at leading global OTAs, total web traffic in Q2 was 30% higher than recorded in Q1 and was 43% higher than Q2 of 2021. Clearly, the industry is gaining momentum and demand. However, notably, booking.com’s growth in both those periods was stronger than the industry as a whole.

Conversion data in the U.S. looks strong

Looking at converted visits for hotels in the U.S. as a proxy for overall conversion trends for the company (the number of website visits that result in sales activity), the data looks encouraging for Q2. Total converted visits in Q2 rose 49% over Q1 and were 22% higher than in Q2 of 2021. These numbers are a good indicator that the company was able to capture a large portion of the demand environment in Q2.

Time spent on site has risen and is well above peers

The average visit duration is the time spent on each OTA’s website. Rising duration could mean consumers are more engaged, and have a greater intent to make a purchase, but also could be a sign that they are carefully weighing options in light of recent trends in the global economy and inflation. Booking.com has seen its average duration rise sharply over the past six months, and its duration exceeds peers by a wide margin, yet another sign that they are outperforming its OTA peers.

For the period from June 2019 through June 2022 for example, Booking.com’s average duration was eight minutes and five seconds, well ahead of the average of five peers we looked at which was four minutes and fifty-six seconds. No competitor’s duration was above six minutes, while Booking was above eight minutes.

Booking.com seeing strong demand

Data on web traffic for booking.com and the overall industry improved in Q2, and booking.com looks to have grown faster than its peers. Coupled with strong conversion data and better than peer engagement and audience loyalty, the trends for the company look encouraging.

The Similarweb Insights Newsroom is available to pull additional or updated data on request for the news media (journalists are invited to write to press@similarweb.com). When citing our data, please reference Similarweb as the source and link back to the most relevant blog post or similarweb.com/blog/insights/.

Methodology

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