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Expedia confounds expectations in strong first quarter

Gross bookings across the Expedia Group, including accommodation rental arm HomeAway, rose by $3.6 billion or 15% to $27.2 billion in the first quarter of the year.

This was based on year-on-year revenue increasing by 15% to $2.5 billion.

Alternative accommodation arm HomeAway delivered $3.9 billion of gross bookings, up by 46%, and reached about $10 billion in gross bookings for the first time on a 12 months basis.

Room nights for the Expedia brand, Hotels.com, Expedia Partner Solutions and Egencia combined grew 16%, with HomeAway stayed room nights up 36%.

The online travel group’s global accommodation portfolio increased to more than 665,000 properties by March 31, up 74%, with 50,000 new properties and 25,000 more HomeAway listings available.

HomeAway now offers more than 1.6 million online bookable listings.

Trivago continued to increase its share of the rest of world region in the first quarter to 20%, up from 15% in the same period of 2017, driven by a 23% increase in referrals year-over-year.

More than 350,000 units of alternative accommodation, including vacation rentals, were available on Trivago’s platform by the end of the quarter.

Analysts had expected a worse set of result from Expedia after the disappointing trading update from Trivago which Expedia part owns.

The overall results included the impact of SilverRail and hotel technology division ALICE following the acquisition of majority ownership stakes in June and August last year respectively.

Lodging revenue increased 15% in the first quarter driven by growth in Hotels.com, Expedia Partner Solutions, the Expedia brand and HomeAway. Room nights stayed increased 15% while revenue per room night was flat.

Air revenue was up by 11% on a 10% rise in revenue per ticket augmented by a 1% increase in tickets sold.

Advertising and media revenue was up 10% thanks to ten percentage points of positive impact from foreign exchange as well as continued growth in Expedia Group Media Solutions, partially offset by a decline in local currency revenue at trivago.

All other revenue increased 18% in the first quarter of 2018 reflecting growth in car rental and travel insurance.

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