Airbnb: Travelers Delay Booking Accommodations Amid Macro Uncertainty

Airbnb has seen shorter booking lead times in recent weeks, with customers around the world booking their accommodations closer to their expected time of arrival.

A growing share of customers are booking just days or a couple of weeks in advance, Airbnb executives said Tuesday (Aug. 6) during the company’s quarterly earnings call.

This trend first appeared in July and has grown strong since then, after a first and second quarter in which the lead times were basically the same as what Airbnb saw a year earlier.

The company has seen this happen before during times of uncertainty, executives said.

“Over the last couple of years, as we emerged from COVID, there were several periods where we saw some volatility in terms of overall lead times, and in particular some hesitancy for consumers to book those longer lead time trips,” Ellie Mertz, chief financial officer at Airbnb, said during the call. “I suspect that’s what we’re seeing right now.”

Mertz added that this trend doesn’t necessarily mean that consumers are not going to book the trip, it’s just that they haven’t booked it yet.

Later in the call, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said that the growth rates of last-minute bookings are “incredibly strong,” while the concentration of bookings that happen more than a month in advance has shown “a modest amount of softness.”

“I think what we’ve seen in the past is, from time to time, whether it be a new COVID variant, whether it be a macro headline, whether it be, like last year, the outbreak of war in Israel, people from time to time have moments where they are not booking in the same time frame that they did in prior periods,” Chesky said. “That’s what we’re tracking right now.”

The executives made these remarks while reporting that, during the second quarter, Airbnb saw year-over-year gains of 9% in nights and experiences booked, 11% in gross booking value (GBV) and 11% in revenue.

The bookings saw growth across all regions, and the gains in GBV and revenue were driven by the growth in bookings and a “modest increase” in average daily rate (ADR), Airbnb said in a shareholder letter released Tuesday in conjunction with the earnings call.

Looking ahead, Airbnb expects to see year-over-year revenue growth of 8% to 10% during the current quarter, with the growth of nights and experiences booked moderating and the booking lead times continuing to be shorter, according to the letter.