A visual history of digital travel brands’ revenues since 1995

PhocusWire first produced this visualization of digital travel company quarterly revenues in November 2019.

Within months, of course, the COVID pandemic brought most of the world to a standstill, putting the brakes on what had been a steady uptick in revenue for many travel brands.

For about two years thereafter, the industry saw a series of fits and starts as variants of the virus spiked every few months, causing setbacks to a sustained recovery. Geo-political conflicts, primarily the Russian invasion of Ukraine and, last fall, the latest war between Israel and Hamas, have also had an impact.

But for the most part, 2023 seemed to be a year of good fortunes for digital travel’s publicly-traded companies.

Booking Holdings, Expedia Group, Airbnb, Trip.com Group, Amadeus, Sabre and Tripadvisor all saw their revenue and adjusted EBITDA surge in 2023, with many of those companies hitting record levels by both measures.

Booking Holdings had record revenue of $21.4 billion in 2023, up from $17.1 billion the year before and up from $15.1 billion in 2019. Expedia Group’s full year revenue of $12.8 billion was also a record and up 10% compared with the year prior. Airbnb reported annual revenue of $9.9 billion, up about 18% year over year, with adjusted EBITDA up 28% to $3.7 billion.

Amadeus and Sabre saw their revenues increase 21% and 15%, respectively, in the last year, but certainly the most eye-popping increase came from Trip.com Group, where the reopening of travel in China in 2023 boosted revenue by 122% year over year to $6 billion.

PhocusWire’s visual history of quarterly revenues dates back to 1995, beginning with Sabre Holdings, which then delisted in 2007 and began publicly trading again as Sabre Corporation in 2014. Some of the current companies, including Booking Holdings, Expedia Group and Trip.com Group have gone through name changes. Companies have been added and removed as they have gone public or private.

Foreign currencies were converted into U.S dollars, using the exchange rate on the day earnings were reported. Several companies in international markets report earnings only on a half-year basis, which means their revenue numbers on the chart change only twice a year.