Skift Take
When you consider that Expedia and Booking each made at least $900 million in advertising-related revenue in 2022 (though likely much more) and Airbnb pocketed next to zilch, then you know that Airbnb can take advantage of a substantial opportunity.
Booking.com does it and so do Amazon, Etsy and Alibaba, so why not Airbnb?
Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky mentioned all these companies earlier this week when he discussed potentially launching sponsored listings and an advertising platform for Airbnb. He could have also referenced Google, Expedia, Tripadvisor and many others.
"I think it's a massive opportunity," Chesky said. "I think you could imagine easily adding a few equivalent percentage rates [points] of take rate if you were to scale that over time. I think there's a lot of comparables like Amazon, one of the largest advertising platforms now in the world, Etsy or Alibaba or even Booking.com. This is a big part of their take rate."
Take rates are generally the commissions or fees that a company collects for each booking. Airbnb currently charges hosts a 3 percent fee, and guests in the 10 to 14 percent neighborhood on average, although it varies.
Skift Research estimated that if Airbnb debuted an ad platform in