|
Along-simmering battle between Airbnb and Priceline’s Booking.com, the two most popular travel accommodation apps in the world, is about to explode. In an interview with The Information, Booking.com CEO Gillian Tans said the firm, which specializes in hotel listings, is determined this year to become more of a force in short-term home and apartment rentals in the U.S. That market, popularized by Airbnb and Expedia’s HomeAway, has become the fastest-growing part of the travel lodgings market. But it’s one that Booking.com has, until recently, been slow to move into. In a sign of its commitment, Booking.com quietly hired away longtime Airbnb executive Olivier Gremillon to run its own homes division last month. His hiring hasn’t been previously reported. Meanwhile, Airbnb is beginning to go after Booking.com’s bread and butter. Airbnb, valued on paper at $31 billion with $2.6 billion in revenue last year, announced a deal last week that would make it easier for boutique hotels to list rooms on the site. Airbnb emailed journalists on Wednesday an outside report that showed small hotels felt squeezed by charges imposed by online travel agents like Booking.com. Next week, Airbnb is expected to announce new offerings for business travelers who now stay more often in hotel rooms sold on sites like Booking. Around the world, Amsterdam-based Booking.com—more than 10 years older than Airbnb—holds a slight edge over the San Francisco company in worldwide app downloads and monthly average users on both iPhone and Android phones, according to Apptopia. Last year, Booking.com had more than 41 million downloads and 14.5 million average monthly active users. Airbnb had nearly 37 million downloads and 13 million monthly active users. But when it comes to the homes market in the U.S., Booking.com has a long way to catch up. In a survey last fall, 45% of Americans picked Airbnb as a top place to search for “alternative accommodations” like homes or apartments, according to RBC Capital. Second was Expedia’s HomeAway and VRBO sites, with 36%. Only 9% of those surveyed said they looked on Booking for those types of stays. (In the United Kingdom, Booking was tied with Airbnb for most popular for these types of properties.) Booking.com and Airbnb also are very different in their strategy and tactics. Booking.com is famous for a heavy-handed customer conversion approach, tagging hotel listings with claims like “in high demand!” highlighted in red. Airbnb leans more minimalist and wants to spotlight more unique listings, sometimes featuring fancy RVs to book on its homepage. While Airbnb has helped disrupt the travel industry in recent years, Booking.com was an innovator of online travel last decade. It jumped ahead of Expedia, which was run by now-Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, by collecting commissions on hotel rooms listed on the site rather than selling them wholesale. Booking.com’s mastery of the numbers-driven world of online marketing is likely the biggest reason why Priceline’s stock has grown more than 150% over the last five years, with a market cap now at $88 billion. Priceline says in its SEC filings that Booking.com generates a “substantial majority” of its profits. Read original article |
