Skift Take
There is a degree of irrationality in CEO pay on many levels, including the companies' relative performance. The pay disclosures also expose the wide disparity in employee pay at Booking versus Airbnb.
Expedia Group in 2021 awarded vice chairman and CEO Peter Kern a $296 million compensation package, outpacing all his peers by an order of magnitude, and reportedly making him the third-highest compensated CEO in all of corporate America.
See the chart below outlining the 2021 compensation for the CEOs of Expedia Group, Booking Holdings, Tripadvisor, and Airbnb. The companies disclosed their executives' compensation in May.
On paper, Kern's bonanza makes Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky's 2020 package of $120 million seem like a relative paltry sum.
All of these comparisons are apples versus oranges. We'll explain.
To put it all into perspective, on the surface Kern's 2021 compensation package has a 2,897:1 ratio compared to the median pay for Expedia workers, which was $102,270.
Kern's 2021 compensation package, though, actually covers three years plus a make-good for Covid-tinged 2020, while the median pay for Expedia emplo
Photo Caption: Expedia Group CEO Peter Kern had the largest compensation award in 2021 among online travel CEOs, and it was reportedly the third highest among public company CEOs in the U.S.