Similarweb Hotels and Accomodations Update: US Web Traffic up 18% in Q1; up 28% in March 

Airbnb loses travel share while Booking.com gains   

Similarweb’s latest look at OTAs (online travel agents), hotels and accommodations, and vacation rentals shows overall demand remains robust to start the year, with the peer group seeing 18% growth in the first quarter, year-over-year, and with the month of March seeing acceleration, rising 28% over last year.

Key Takeaways:

• Booking.com saw the most growth in web traffic on a year-over-year basis, rising 34% in Q1, followed by Hyatt up 33%, and IHG up 27%.
• The whole peer group saw year-over-year growth, with Airbnb lagging with the slowest group in the peer group, rising just 6%. Vrbo was up 7%, while Marriott was up 25%, and Hilton was up 27%. Expedia saw web traffic rise 19% and Hotels.com gained 15%.
• In terms of share of traffic (a proxy for market share), Airbnb lost 2.4 points of share versus the peer group while Booking gained share.
• Notably, Hotels and OTAs seemed to grab the most growth, while vacation rentals were the slowest, potentially signaling a shift in consumer travel behavior.

Demand was strong in Q1

You can see the relative performance of the peer group in March 2023 on a year-over-year basis below. The entire group is seeing strong demand, with the 2022 revenge travel trend seemingly continuing unabated in the first three months of 2023. One trend that stands out includes a decided underperformance by vacation rental sites versus hotels and OTAs. The fastest growth was at Booking.com (+34%), Hyatt (+33%), IHG (+27%) Hilton (+27%) and Marriott (+25%) Expedia (+19%), and Hotels.com (+15%). Airbnb (+6%) and Vrbo (+7%) lagged the group performance.

Monthly web traffic shows an accelerating story

Airbnb and Vrbo both grew in March versus February, unsurprisingly, since the entire group saw growth, but they again underperformed their peers. They both grew just 8% versus February, while Marriott and Hotels.com led in monthly growth at 22%, followed by IHG and Booking (+20%), Expedia (+19%), and Hilton and Hyatt (+17%).

What’s driving the underperformance of vacation rentals versus hotels and OTAs? It could be a couple of things. First, vacation rentals were significantly aided by health concerns during the pandemic, when travelers chose to increasingly book sites that didn’t require them to be around other travelers. With concerns over COVID lessened post-vaccine, this trend seems to have reversed.

Secondly, the hassle factor involved in a vacation rental (added fees, need to clean up after yourself, numerous restrictions), seems to have made the experience less compelling for many travelers. It’s also possible that vacation rental landlords have raised prices too aggressively or not properly responded to changing market conditions with reduced pricing. They are still growing after all, just at a decidedly slower pace than the rest of the group.

Airbnb and Vrbo lost their share of traffic versus peers, with Booking up the most

Share of traffic is an important indicator of how the companies are performing against each other, and you can see Airbnb and Vrbo losing ground versus peers while Booking gained the most. By growing relatively slower than the rest of its peers in March, Expedia also 70 basis points of share of traffic. Airbnb lost 2.4 percentage points versus peers, and Vrbo lost one percentage point. Booking.com gained 2.5 percentage points of traffic to lead all gainers.

The overall share of traffic shows Expedia leading, followed by Airbnb

Looking at the overall share of traffic in this peer group, pictured below, you can see that Expedia and Airbnb are the share leaders, even though they are losing some share of traffic versus peers. Expedia’s web traffic in March 2023 represented 22% of the peer group, followed by Airbnb at 19%, and Booking at 18%. You can see the group represented in the pie chart below.

Publicly traded companies mentioned in this report include Airbnb, Inc. (NASDAQ:ABNB), Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG), Expedia Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPE), Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. (NYSE: HLT), Hyatt Hotels Corp. (NYSE:H), InterContinental Hotels Group (NYSE:IHG), and Marriott International, Inc. (NASDAQ:MAR).

The Similarweb Insights & Communications team 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/.

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Citation:  Please refer to Similarweb as a digital intelligence platform. If online, please link back to www.similarweb.com or the most relevant blog post.

Report By: Jim Corridore, Senior Insights Manager

Methodology

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