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Travel companies blew earnings out of the water this quarter. Booking Holdings took it a step further.

Booking is the only major travel platform outperforming the S&P 500 since Airbnb’s December 2020 IPO.

2/21/25 3:14PM

This month Wall Street was blown away by the results of online travel platforms, bolstered by what appears to have been a busy holiday travel season.

Booking Holdings, Expedia, Airbnb, and Tripadvisor all reported earnings that surpassed what analysts polled by FactSet were expecting. With the exception of TripAdvisor, each of their stock prices have outperformed the S&P 500 in the past month.

Here are some takeaways from this earnings season.

Booking Holdings keeps its throne

Booking Holdings — which owns Booking.com, OpenTable, and Kayak — has far outpaced its peers.

The company was an early entrant and pioneered the “agency model,” where it connects customers with merchants and then collects commission from the hotel or airline that ultimately got the customer’s money. It is now increasingly moving to a “merchant model,” long used by competitor Expedia, which involves buying accommodations at wholesale and flipping it to the traveler.

Booking’s sales dwarf its competitors: it brought in $23.7 billion in revenue in 2024, compared to $13.6 billion from Expedia and $11.1 billion from Airbnb. Booking is the only major travel platform to outperform the S&P 500 since Airbnb’s December 2020 IPO.

Money to be made in experiences

While Booking and Expedia may focus more on finding flights, hotels, and rental cars, there’s growing demand from travelers for excursions. And there’s money to be made by connecting a family in Ohio with a scuba instructor in the Bahamas.

TripAdvisor has generally performed worse than its peers, but its biggest growth has come from The Viator, its platform for tours and activities. “The experiences category is increasingly becoming the strategic and financial center of gravity of the Group, as we continue to position our unique assets to extend our leadership in this large and fast-growing market,” Matt Goldberg, CEO of Tripadvisor, told analysts on February 20.

Airbnb is relaunching its “Experiences” services in May 2025. Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky admitted that the company’s first attempt at Experiences was not successful, in part because it did not promote it as aggressively at it should have.

“For the first time around, I don’t think we integrated Experiences really well into the product,” Chesky told analysts on February 13.

Everybody is talking about AI

At this point it’s hard to find a company that doesn’t mention AI in their earnings calls. But if you’re interested in how CEOs see generative AI integrating into their platforms, here you go:

“Generative AI is pushing the pace of technology innovation faster than ever. We are well positioned to deploy this technology to further benefit our travelers and partners... We believe that compelling AI-powered offerings like a travel vertical-specific agent will play a central role in delivering even more seamless and personalized Connected Trip experiences.” — Glenn Fogel, CEO of Booking Holdings

“We are exploring the many ways AI will unlock even more value in our products, particularly across the discovery, shopping, and post-booking journey.” — Ariane Gorin, CEO of Expedia Group

“Over the coming years, we’re going to take that AI-powered customer service agent and bring it into Airbnb search to eventually graduate to be a travel and living concierge.” — Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb

9.3%

Max Knoblauch8h

As the war with Iran produces the biggest spike in US gas prices since Hurricane Katrina, car retailer CarMax is continuing to see heightened interest in EVs, hybrids, and plug-in hybrids.

“From Feb 1st - March 1st (inclusive), compared to March 2nd to March 15th (inclusive), we saw a 9.3% lift in page views for these vehicles,” a spokesperson for the company told Sherwood News.

As industry insiders recently told us, EV interest climbs when gas prices rise. That appears to be holding true even without EV tax credits, which the Trump administration ended under its new budget package.

CarMax also saw EV searches spike in 2022, amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting oil price spike.

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$35.4B

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The tariffs imposed by the Trump administration have cost automakers at least $35.4 billion since the start of 2025, according to a new analysis by Automotive News.

That total will continue to climb this year, since the Supreme Court’s February tariff ruling largely leaves the 25% levy on vehicles and auto parts untouched.

Toyota has taken the biggest hit, projecting more than $9 billion in tariff costs in its fiscal year ending this month, while Detroit’s big three automakers — Ford, GM, and Stellantis — were hit with a combined $6.5 billion tariff charge in 2025.

In the fourth quarter, automakers sold about 8% fewer imported vehicles in the US compared to the same period a year ago, per the Automotive News Research & Data Center.

Tariff charges come at a rough time for legacy carmakers, which are also scaling back EV plans following the Trump administration’s elimination of tax credits and fuel standard goals. According to Automotive News, the cost of EV write-downs and restructuring is, so far, nearly $70 billion.

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