Airbnb revenue reached $1.5 billion for the January-March period for the first time in company history.
The US home-sharing and alternative accommodation giant saw revenue grow 70% year-over-year – 80% more than the corresponding quarter in 2019 ($839 million), before its listing on public markets.
The pandemic-battered 2020 and 2021 saw the company hit revenues of $842 million and $887 million respectively in the fiscal first quarter.
Airbnb’s ongoing strategy to attract digital nomads and longer stays to its portfolio of properties continues, with the company revealing that 21% of gross nights booked in Q1 2022 were for stays of 28 days or longer.
This figure is up from 13% in 2019 and slightly down from 24% in 2021. Almost half of all stays booked on the platform are for periods of at least one week.
Overall, some 102.1 million room nights were booked on the platform in the first quarter of 2022, up 57% from 2021 and for a gross booking value of $17.2 billion (up from 67% year over year).
Airbnb says it achieved its first profitable period in the first quarter, with adjusted EBITDA of $229 million (up from losses in 2019 and 2021). Net losses were $19 million for the three months – an improvement from the red mark of $292 million in 2019.
The strong start to the fiscal year was due, in part, to huge demand despite “ongoing concerns related to the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and macroeconomic headwinds,” the company said.
All regions of the world, with the exception of Asia-Pacific, are seeing strong recovery rates for room nights and experiences booked on the platform, with Latin America being the most notable part of the world with a higher level of 65% in the first quarter of 2022 compared to the corresponding quarter in 2019.
Restrictions on cross-border travel in Asia-Pacific (particularly China) prevented a meaningful recovery and bookings remained “depressed”.
The company says: “While we have seen COVID distort historical seasonality patterns in 2020 and, to a lesser extent, the first half of 2021 due to travel restrictions and changing travel preferences related to the pandemic, we are seeing pre-pandemic seasonality models return in 2022.”
Speaking on the earnings call with analysts, CEO Brian Chesky says the company gets 90% of its traffic through direct or unpaid channels.
“Advertising is really an additional form of education for us. It’s not the main driver of growth. We think the main driver of growth, Airbnb, is innovation. It’s about create a product that people love.
“And the role of marketing is not to buy customers. The role of marketing for us is to educate people about our new features and our new offerings.”
As for some of the product lines that have been taken off the table during the COVID-19 pandemic, or less accentuated, Chesky says the current reporting year will see her focus on trying to capture as much share. market as possible on its core product (alternative housing – “perishable”, he says), but other opportunities are being explored.
Airbnb Experiences is a “big area” for investment in the coming years, Chesky says, with an increase in 2022 and “even more” in 2023.
Chesky also claims that the “I am flexible” search feature has been used two billion times by users of the site.
He adds: “We are seeing people booking properties outside of many popular tourist destinations.
“And we’re seeing an ability to redistribute travel demand beyond the most popular hotspots like Rome, Paris, Las Vegas, New York and Los Angeles. So that’s really the most important thing that ‘I’m Flexible’ can do.”
Airbnb is expected to announce a series of service enhancements in mid-May, Chesky said, that will make it easier for hosts to register on the site, attract more hosts, and manage properties and their availability. .
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