Online travel agencies entered 2024 with substantial transaction volume across accommodation, flights, rental cars, activities, and ground transportation. Booking Holdings reported 1.1 billion room nights for the year, while Expedia Group reported 383.9 million. Airbnb reported 491.5 million Nights and Experiences Booked. These measures cover different business models and should not be treated as a single market total.
Contents
- 2024 scale at a glance
- Booking Holdings performance
- Expedia Group performance
- Airbnb and Tripadvisor results
- Accommodation and travel-service reach
- Revenue mix, marketing, and operating costs
2024 scale at a glance
The reported figures show large year-over-year increases in transaction activity and financial results, but the companies use different operating measures. Booking Holdings reports room nights, gross bookings, revenue, and adjusted EBITDA. Expedia Group reports similar measures for both the fourth quarter and the full year. Airbnb reports Nights and Experiences Booked, Gross Booking Value, revenue, and net income. The comparisons below keep each company’s published measure intact.
| Company and period | Activity measure | Gross bookings or booking value | Revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| Booking Holdings, full-year 2024 | 1.1 billion room nights, up 9% | $165.6 billion, up 10% | $23.7 billion, up 11% |
| Expedia Group, full-year 2024 | 383.9 million room nights, up 9% | $110.921 billion, up 7% | $13.691 billion, up 7% |
| Airbnb, full-year 2024 | 491.5 million Nights and Experiences Booked, up 10% | $8.5 billion Gross Booking Value, up 12% | $11.1 billion, up 12% |
Sources: [Booking Holdings Q4 2024 earnings release]; [Expedia Group Q4 2024 earnings release]; [Airbnb 2024 annual report]. No single figure in this table represents total online travel agency industry volume, because the definitions and company scopes differ.
Booking Holdings’ full-year gross bookings were up 10% and its room nights were up 9%. Expedia Group’s full-year gross bookings increased 7%, alongside a 9% increase in room nights. Airbnb’s reported Nights and Experiences Booked increased 10%, while its Gross Booking Value increased 12%. The direction is similar across the three companies, although the underlying products are not identical.
Booking Holdings performance
Booking Holdings recorded $23.7 billion in revenue in 2024, an 11% year-over-year increase. Net income reached $5.9 billion, up 37%, while diluted EPS reached $172.69, up 47%. Adjusted EBITDA was $8.3 billion, up 17%. Net cash from operating activities reached $8.3 billion, up 13%, and free cash flow reached $7.9 billion, also up 13%. These figures come from the Booking Holdings Q4 2024 earnings release and describe the full year.
The company’s quarterly figures also show strong fourth-quarter activity. Booking Holdings booked 261 million room nights in Q4 2024, up 13% year over year. Gross bookings were $37.2 billion, up 17%, and revenue was $5.5 billion, up 14%. GAAP net income was $1.1 billion, up 383%, while GAAP EPS was $31.95, up 409%. Adjusted EPS was $41.55, up 30%, and adjusted EBITDA was $1.8 billion, up 26%.
The quarterly and annual numbers answer different questions. The annual room-night figure describes the complete 2024 reporting period, while the 261 million room nights describe only the fourth quarter. Similarly, the $37.2 billion in quarterly gross bookings is not an alternative annual total; it is one period within the $165.6 billion full-year figure.
Expedia Group performance
Expedia Group booked 383.9 million room nights in full-year 2024, up 9% year over year. Full-year gross bookings reached $110.921 billion, up 7%, and revenue reached $13.691 billion, also up 7%. Operating income reached $1.319 billion, up 28%. Net income attributable to common stockholders reached $1.234 billion, up 55%, and diluted EPS reached $8.95, up 69%.
Expedia Group’s adjusted measures increased as well. Adjusted EBITDA reached $2.934 billion, up 13%. Adjusted EBIT reached $1.646 billion, up 17%, while adjusted net income reached $1.622 billion, up 12%. Adjusted EPS reached $11.74, up 20%. The company ended 2024 with $5.574 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash and cash equivalents. These full-year figures are from the Expedia Group Q4 2024 earnings release.
In Q4 2024, Expedia Group booked 86.4 million room nights, up 12% year over year. Gross bookings were $24.422 billion, up 13%, and revenue was $3.184 billion, up 10%. Operating income was $216 million, up 109%, while net income attributable to common stockholders was $299 million, up 124%. Diluted EPS was $2.20, up 139%.
The company’s fourth-quarter adjusted results were $643 million in adjusted EBITDA, up 21%; $338 million in adjusted EBIT, up 50%; $315 million in adjusted net income, up 30%; and $2.39 in adjusted EPS, up 39%. As with Booking Holdings, these quarterly results should be read separately from the full-year totals.
Airbnb and Tripadvisor results
Airbnb’s 2024 annual report states that revenue increased 12% to $11.1 billion. Nights and Experiences Booked increased 10% to 491.5 million, and Gross Booking Value increased 12% to $8.5 billion. The same report’s discussion also states 43.3 million Nights and Experiences Booked in its stated comparison period. Because that 43.3 million figure is presented as a comparison-period measure, it should not be substituted for Airbnb’s 2024 total.
Airbnb net income decreased 45% to $2.6 billion in 2024. This creates an important distinction between top-line growth and bottom-line movement: the annual report records increases in revenue, booked nights and experiences, and Gross Booking Value, while reporting a decrease in net income. These are separate reported measures rather than interchangeable indicators of performance. Source: Airbnb 2024 annual report.
Tripadvisor’s 2024 annual report provides changes by business area rather than one consolidated activity total in the supplied figures. Tripadvisor-branded hotels revenue decreased $74 million. Media and advertising revenue increased $5 million. Experiences and dining revenue decreased $7 million, while other revenue decreased $6 million.
The same annual report states that Tripadvisor Viator revenue increased $103 million and TheFork revenue increased $27 million. It also reports that Tripadvisor Hotel Meta revenue declined in both the United States and Europe in 2024. These dollar changes are reported movements in the named revenue categories; they are not presented here as total company revenue or as room-night measures.
Accommodation and travel-service reach
Booking.com offered accommodation reservation services for approximately 4.0 million properties at December 31, 2024, according to Booking Holdings’ 2024 annual report. Its listed inventory included approximately 500,000 hotels, motels, and resorts, plus approximately 3.5 million homes, apartments, and other unique places to stay. Those categories sum to the stated approximate 4.0 million properties, but the figures remain company-reported approximations.
Booking.com operated in over 220 countries and territories at December 31, 2024, and supported over 40 languages. Booking Holdings’ 2024 annual report describes Booking.com as the world’s leading brand for booking online accommodation reservations based on room nights booked. The report also says Booking.com accounted for the majority of Booking Holdings’ merchant revenue from accommodation reservations in 2024.
The service extended beyond accommodation. Booking.com offered flights in over 55 markets in 2024, in-destination tours and activities in 1,700 cities, rental car reservation services in over 42,000 locations, and ground transportation services at approximately 1,900 airports. These counts describe the reach of the listed offerings during 2024; they do not measure bookings or revenue for each category.
Revenue mix, marketing, and operating costs
Booking Holdings’ 2024 annual report separates revenue into several categories. Merchant revenue was $14.142 billion, up 29.3% year over year. Agency revenue was $8.524 billion, down 9.5%. Advertising and other revenue was $1.073 billion, up 5.7%. The categories show that the company’s reported revenue came from more than one transaction structure and commercial activity.
Marketing expense was $7.278 billion in 2024, up 13.1%, and equaled 30.7% of revenue. General and administrative expense was $3.120 billion, also up 13.1%. These amounts are cost measures from the annual report, not customer booking totals. The marketing percentage is the company-reported share of revenue and should not be read as a share of gross bookings.
The annual report also records several specific 2024 items. Booking Holdings recorded a $413 million fine from Spain’s CNMC and paid $332 million to settle an Italian tax matter in November 2024. It recorded an additional estimated $77 million pension expense in 2024. These items are part of the company’s reported financial context, but they are not operating-volume measures and should be kept separate from room nights, gross bookings, and revenue.
For independent travelers, the practical implication of these statistics is scale with variety. The largest platforms reported hundreds of millions of accommodation or broader travel transactions, while Booking.com’s listed footprint covered millions of properties and services across countries, languages, flights, activities, cars, and airport transportation. The figures also show why comparing an online travel agency requires checking the exact metric, period, geography, and business definition attached to every number.