Booking (BKNG) and Expedia (EXPE) are the top players among online travel agencies, meaning the companies that provide access to hotel rooms, flights, car rentals and even restaurant reservations via web and mobile applications. Demand for these kinds of services is booming over the past several years, since they offer plenty of advantages versus the traditional brick-and-mortar travel agency model.
The industry is going through a consolidation process, with Booking and Expedia acquiring smaller players over time. To name a few noteworthy examples, Booking has acquired platforms such as Agoda.com, Kayak, Rentalcars.com, OpenTable and Momondo Group, while Expedia bought Trivago, Travelocity, Orbitz, CheapTickets.com and HomeAway, among others. Booking is the market leader in international markets, but Expedia has a larger presence in the U.S.
Looking at the revenue growth rates over the long term, Booking has significantly outperformed Expedia in the past decade.
) data by
Booking also has a superior growth rate on a trailing twelve months basis, and Wall Street analysts are on average expecting Booking to outgrow Expedia by a small margin in the years ahead. However, Expedia beats Booking when it comes to expected earnings growth.
data by
BKNG data by YCharts