Watch Airbnb, Expedia and Booking Holdings on first signs U.S. travel demand may be cracking
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Oppenheimer walked away from an investor meeting with analytics firm Key Data Dashboard incrementally cautious on travel booking trends.
The firm said the key takeaway is that U.S. vacation rental destinations are starting to experience RevPar tracking below 2021 levels, which it attributed to inflationary pressures outweighing the pent-up demand dynamic. Additionally, some of the softness in vacation rentals is said to be due to the mix shift of the U.S. traveler going increasingly to urban and international destinations. There is a warning that Q3 and Q4 U.S. vacation bookings could trend below the level seen in 2021 (although still higher than the pre-pandemic level in 2019). Meanwhile, Europe is noted to be experiencing strong trends with higher pent-up demand being realized due to the harsher government restrictions over the past two years.
Oppenheimer's read into the Q2 earnings season is that the trends are bullish for Booking Holdings (NASDAQ:BKNG), neutral for Airbnb (ABNB), and slightly negative for Expedia's (EXPE) Vrbo.
Premarket trading: BKNG -1.92%, ABNB -3.41%, EXPE -0.96%.
Compare financial metrics on Booking Holdings, Expedia, and Airbnb.