Booking Holdings

Airbnb is trying to win on brand with a reduced reliance on Google while the smaller Vrbo embraced YouTube big-time, and will spend, spend, spend to advantage.

The online travel industry focuses on every move or utterance from Airbnb and its CEO Brian Chesky. Not that Booking Holdings is an after-thought these days, but before Airbnb there was Priceline, Booking.com, and the Group's boss, Jeffery Boyd. Building blocks, certainly.

Booking.com, with its vast audience, is becoming a significant player in attractions, tours and activities. However, it will have to share the revenue with its growing roster of distribution partners, which now include Tripadvisor and TUI.

Airbnb officials fell in love with the perceived artistry of their TV commercials, which don't have a targeted message. That could produce aftershocks later this year if rivals take advantage.

Midway through 2020, Expedia Group and its Vrbo short-term rental unit took the high road by not wanting to appear to be taking advantage of host anger at Airbnb's early-pandemic refund policies. But when your new host recruitment plan targets "superhosts," it's clear those calculations are long gone.

China's Trip.com Group is entering the content and advertising spheres to address longstanding weaknesses in its transaction business. It joins a plethora of travel businesses that are remaking themselves, whether they are launching financial services or subscription offerings, during the pandemic.

Airbnb will spend tens of millions of dollars, if not more, on its global advertising and referral campaigns to recruit more hosts, and that's probably a smart move. On the face of it, though, this proves that the company's host sign-up efforts are hardly organic, as one analyst alleged.

For any regulators listening, Booking.com is a powerful force in the European hotel industry. So is Google. There's no way around it, despite the spin from the CEO.

Among Skift's top travel stories this week, we explored Mallorca's tourism miscues, backpacker tourism, Egypt's out of touch move to bring in foreign influencers, and Marriott's naming of a new CEO.

Is there one little thing that Wall Street is forgetting about the Booking Holdings-Airbnb face-off? Booking Holdings has a huge hotel business and Airbnb doesn't. Booking is certainly lagging in short-term rentals, but CEO Glenn Fogel is probably justified in liking his cards.