Airbnb Sees 55% of Gross Nights Booked Through Its App

The great travel snapback continues, through digital channels, matching supply and demand for places to stay when getting away from it all.

Airbnb noted in its results that the fourth quarter saw 98.8 million nights and experiences booked, up 12% from a year ago. As many as 55% of the company’s gross nights were booked through the app, up from 50% last year.

Average daily rates increased by 3% to $157 in the December quarter as measured from a year ago. At year end there were 7.7 million active listings, up 18% from a year earlier.

During the conference call with analysts, CEO Brian Chesky said that during the quarter, “we also saw sustained double digits of high growth across all regions.”

In response to questions on how the company will use AI, Chesky said “We’re not going to be building a large language model. We’ll be relying on obviously, OpenAI … but where we can excel is on the application layer” to build personalized experiences that will help Airbnb become a cross-vertical company.

Accelerating Demand

He noted that 90% of the company’s traffic remains direct, and demand has been stable through the first few months of the new year, building on the “accelerating demand” that was hallmark of November and December, after some initial softness in October — especially in North America and Europe, which were outpaced by growth in Latin America and Asia Pacific. Demand is normalizing, Chesky.

“If you look at the room nights growth,” he sad, “we continue to see strength relative to the traditional hospitality and competition” and he called out the fact that 36% of new hosts were prior Airbnb guests.

Looking ahead, and with a nod towards the international travel surge, Chesky said that the company’s cross-currency fee — where such cross-currency transactions are 20% of gross booking value and 44% of bookings are for cross-border travel — will be around 1%. The company will test and evaluate that fee beginning in April.

Elsewhere he noted that the rentals themselves are becoming more affordable for consumers as new supply relieves pricing pressure. As many as 300,000 listings have now reduced or eliminated their cleaning fee, and 40% of listings are removing cleaning fees.

More than 40% of the company’s stays are weekly, according to management commentary.

Looking ahead, management said that average daily rates for the current quarter will be flat or show a slight increase over year ago levels. Investors sent the shares 2% lower in after hours trading.