Airbnb Keeps Solid Marketing Advantage as Competitors Line Up

Online Travel This Week Will newly public company Airbnb be able to maintain a marketing advantage over Booking and Expedia/Vrbo because of the strength of the Airbnb brand? So far, so good. With three of the big online travel and short-term rental brands having completed their first quarter financial reporting, it's clear that in these early days of a travel recovery in parts of the world, Airbnb indeed kept control of its marketing spend, and presumably reduced its footprint in Google performance marketing, which was a key goal. During the first three months of 2021, Airbnb's sales and marketing spend was $229.1 million, or 25.8 percent of revenue, a decline of 11.8 percentage points compared with the first quarter of 2020.

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Public relations is an important part of Airbnb's marketing efforts, acc