Travel booking activity expanded across major online platforms and travel distribution systems in 2024. Booking Holdings recorded 1.1 billion full-year room nights, Expedia Group recorded 383.9 million, Airbnb reported $17.6 billion in fourth-quarter gross booking value, and Amadeus recorded 471.2 million bookings for the year. These measures describe different parts of the market, so they should not be added together.
Contents
- Online platform booking volumes
- Gross bookings, revenue, and profitability
- Mobile and accommodation booking behavior
- Regional booking and passenger trends
- Trip.com revenue mix and operating costs
- Travel spending and economic contribution
Online platform booking volumes
The largest reported room-night totals came from Booking Holdings and Expedia Group, although the companies use their own reporting scopes and definitions. Booking Holdings reported 261 million room nights in the fourth quarter of 2024, an increase of 13% from the same quarter a year earlier. For full-year 2024, it reported 1.1 billion room nights, up 9% year over year. The company also said room nights grew 9% for the year while gross bookings grew 10% (Booking Holdings Q4 2024 earnings release).
Expedia Group booked 86.4 million room nights in Q4 2024, up 12% year over year. Its full-year total was 383.9 million room nights, up 9% year over year (Expedia Group Q4 2024 earnings release). The quarterly figures show strong growth for both platforms, while the annual figures indicate that the two companies reported the same 9% year-over-year room-night growth rate for 2024.
| Company or system | Period | Reported activity | Year-over-year change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Booking Holdings | Q4 2024 | 261 million room nights | 13% |
| Booking Holdings | Full-year 2024 | 1.1 billion room nights | 9% |
| Expedia Group | Q4 2024 | 86.4 million room nights | 12% |
| Expedia Group | Full-year 2024 | 383.9 million room nights | 9% |
| Amadeus | Q4 2024 | 111.4 million bookings | 9.0% |
| Amadeus | Full-year 2024 | 471.2 million bookings | 4.7% |
Amadeus reported 111.4 million bookings in Q4 2024, up 9.0% year over year, and 471.2 million bookings for full-year 2024, up 4.7% (Amadeus FY2024 consolidated accounts). Amadeus bookings are a distribution-system measure rather than a direct equivalent of a platform’s room-night count. Keeping the units separate is important when comparing travel booking statistics.
Gross bookings, revenue, and profitability
Booking Holdings reported $37.2 billion in gross bookings in Q4 2024, up 17% year over year, and $165.6 billion for full-year 2024, up 10%. Revenue reached $5.5 billion in the quarter, up 14%, and $23.7 billion for the year, up 11% (Booking Holdings Q4 2024 earnings release). The company reported $1.1 billion in Q4 GAAP net income, up 383%, and $5.9 billion for the full year, up 37%. GAAP earnings per share were $31.95 in Q4, up 409%, and $172.69 for the year, up 47%.
Its adjusted EBITDA was $1.8 billion in Q4 2024, up 26%, and $8.3 billion for full-year 2024, up 17%. Net cash from operating activities was $0.7 billion in the quarter, down 46%, compared with $8.3 billion for the full year, up 13%. Free cash flow was $0.6 billion in Q4, down 49%, and $7.9 billion for the year, up 13% (Booking Holdings Q4 2024 earnings release). The quarterly and annual cash-flow changes moved in different directions, so the full-year figures should not be inferred from the quarter alone.
Booking Holdings said marketing expense represented 4.2% of gross bookings in Q4 2024. Its reported net income margin was 19.5%, and its adjusted EBITDA margin was 33.8%. Total operating expenses decreased 10%, while adjusted fixed operating expenses increased 9%. Constant-currency average daily rates increased 2%. Alternative-accommodation room nights increased by a high-teens percentage, a qualitative range rather than a precise percentage (Booking Holdings Q4 2024 earnings release).
Expedia Group reported $24.422 billion in Q4 gross bookings, up 13% year over year, and $110.921 billion for full-year 2024, up 7%. Quarterly revenue was $3.184 billion, up 10%, while full-year revenue was $13.691 billion, up 7% (Expedia Group Q4 2024 earnings release). Operating income reached $216 million in Q4, up 109%, and $1.319 billion for the year, up 28%. Adjusted EBITDA was $643 million in the quarter, up 21%, and $2.934 billion for the year, up 9%.
Expedia Group’s quarterly mix also showed different rates across business lines. B2C gross bookings grew 9% in Q4 2024, B2B gross bookings grew 24%, and hotel bookings increased 14% (Expedia Group Q4 2024 earnings release). These figures indicate that the platform’s business-to-business channel grew faster than its consumer channel during the quarter, but they do not quantify the absolute size of either channel.
Mobile and accommodation booking behavior
Airbnb reported $17.6 billion in gross booking value in Q4 2024, up 13% year over year. App bookings accounted for 60% of total nights booked, compared with 55% a year earlier. Airbnb also said nights booked on its app increased 22% year over year (Airbnb Q4 2024 shareholder letter). The two app figures measure different things: the 60% share describes the portion of nights booked through the app, while 22% describes growth in the app’s booked-night volume.
Airbnb said it operates in more than 220 countries and regions. It also reported that the average growth rate of gross nights booked in expansion markets was more than twice the rate in core markets during Q4 2024. Origin nights booked in Brazil grew by more than 20% in both Q4 and full-year 2024. Asia Pacific saw low-20s growth in nights and experiences booked in Q4, while North America saw mid-single-digit growth (Airbnb Q4 2024 shareholder letter). “Low-20s” and “mid-single-digit” are reported ranges, not exact rates.
Airbnb generated $4.5 billion of free cash flow over the trailing twelve months and reported a 40% free cash flow margin. It also said it saw a notable acceleration in first-time bookers in Q4 2024 (Airbnb Q4 2024 shareholder letter). The reported 60% app share was repeated for Q4 2024 versus 55% in Q4 2023, reinforcing the year-over-year change in the platform’s booking channel mix.
Regional booking and passenger trends
Amadeus’s 2024 regional booking data showed especially strong growth in Asia Pacific and Central, Eastern and Southern Europe. Asia-Pacific bookings reached 102.3 million, up 23.3% year over year. Central, Eastern and Southern Europe recorded 38.2 million bookings, up 21.6%. Western Europe recorded 128.3 million bookings, up 1.2% (Amadeus FY2024 consolidated accounts).
| Amadeus region | 2024 bookings | Year-over-year change |
|---|---|---|
| Western Europe | 128.3 million | 1.2% |
| North America | 118.6 million | -2.3% |
| Asia-Pacific | 102.3 million | 23.3% |
| Middle East and Africa | 56.7 million | -2.8% |
| Central, Eastern and Southern Europe | 38.2 million | 21.6% |
| Latin America | 27.0 million | -7.6% |
North America recorded 118.6 million Amadeus bookings, down 2.3% year over year. Middle East and Africa recorded 56.7 million, down 2.8%, while Latin America recorded 27.0 million, down 7.6% (Amadeus FY2024 consolidated accounts). These regional results are a distribution measure and should not be treated as a complete count of every travel booking in each geography.
Passenger activity was also reported for selected regions. Amadeus recorded 690.6 million passengers boarded in Western Europe in 2024, up 8.0%, and 666.2 million passengers boarded in Asia-Pacific, up 16.0%. At year end, content from 31 airlines using NDC was accessible through the Amadeus Travel Platform (Amadeus FY2024 consolidated accounts). Passenger boardings and bookings are separate measures, so the two totals should not be compared as if they represented the same event.
Trip.com revenue mix and operating costs
Trip.com Group’s 2024 revenue mix shows how travel booking companies can combine accommodation, transport, tours, and corporate travel. Accommodation reservation revenue was RMB21.6 billion and represented 40% of total revenue. Transportation ticketing revenue was RMB20.3 billion and represented 38%. Packaged-tour revenue was RMB4.3 billion, corporate travel revenue was RMB2.5 billion, and other-business revenue was RMB4.6 billion (Trip.com Group 2024 Form 20-F).
| Trip.com Group 2024 category | Revenue |
|---|---|
| Accommodation reservations | RMB21.6 billion |
| Transportation ticketing | RMB20.3 billion |
| Packaged tours | RMB4.3 billion |
| Corporate travel | RMB2.5 billion |
| Other businesses | RMB4.6 billion |
Trip.com said cost of revenues was 19% of net revenues in 2024. Product development expenses were 25%, sales and marketing expenses were 22%, and general and administrative expenses were 8%. Its effective income tax rate was 15% (Trip.com Group 2024 Form 20-F). These percentages describe expense and tax ratios reported by the company; they are not booking conversion rates or traveler fees.
Travel spending and economic contribution
U.S. travel data places online and offline booking activity inside a much larger economic system. The U.S. Travel Association reported that travel supported more than 15 million American workers in 2024, including 8 million workers directly employed by travel. Travel generated $1.3 trillion in travel spending and $2.9 trillion in economic output. It also produced $89 billion in state and local tax revenue, while travel accounted for 2.5% of U.S. national GDP (U.S. Travel Association national data).
The association reported $876 billion in domestic leisure travel spending in 2024 and $312 billion in domestic business travel spending. International inbound travel spending reached $181 billion. Within other reported categories, transient travel spending reached $186 billion, and meetings and events travel spending reached $126 billion (U.S. Travel Association national data). These categories are not necessarily mutually exclusive, so their values should be read as reported measures rather than combined without a stated methodology.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that U.S. exports of services increased to $1,107.8 billion in 2024, with travel exports up $26.3 billion. U.S. imports of services increased to $814.4 billion, with travel imports up $19.2 billion (BEA 2024 international trade release). These figures measure international services trade, not the gross booking value reported by online travel platforms.
Travel demand also affected peak-period screening volumes. The Transportation Security Administration projected 18.3 million screened passengers during the Thanksgiving travel period from November 26 through December 2, 2024, about 6% above 2023. TSA said 2024 passenger volumes had increased 17% since 2022 (TSA Thanksgiving travel release). The Thanksgiving figure is a projection for a defined U.S. period, while the broader 17% comparison describes passenger-volume growth since 2022; neither is a count of online bookings.