TLDR: Major Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) including Airbnb, Booking Holdings, Expedia Group, and Trip.com Group collectively invested $5.2 billion in marketing during the second quarter of 2025. This significant spend reflects a fierce competition for customers, with a notable strategic shift towards leveraging social media and artificial intelligence (AI) channels for customer engagement and growth. Airbnb, despite its direct business model, is also increasing its marketing efforts, particularly for bundled offerings and capitalizing on the shift from traditional search to social platforms.
The competitive landscape among Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) remains intense, driving a substantial increase in online marketing investments. In the second quarter of 2025, the leading online travel players—Airbnb, Booking Holdings, Expedia Group, and Trip.com Group—collectively allocated an impressive $5.2 billion towards marketing efforts. This figure underscores the ongoing battle for market share and customer acquisition in a dynamic industry.
Airbnb, a company that traditionally emphasizes its direct business model with 90% of its business coming directly, also saw a significant rise in its sales and marketing expenditure. The company’s spend increased to $691 million in Q2 2025, up from $593 million in the same quarter of the previous year. During its Q2 2025 earnings call, Airbnb CEO and Chairman Brian Chesky addressed the ‘marketing intensity’ required for expanding initiatives like Airbnb Experiences and Services.
Chesky highlighted a strategic shift in marketing focus, emphasizing the promotion of Airbnb as a comprehensive offering rather than disparate services. He stated, ‘We’re going to be launching ads that market home services and experiences, the bundled offering. And we think this is a really, really key principle that only Airbnb offers all of this in one app. And so we don’t think that the marketing intensity, per se, has to increase because we think we can get a lot more for our dollar by marketing all of our offerings.’ New advertisements for these bundled services are expected to roll out in the autumn.
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Furthermore, Chesky noted a significant evolution in customer engagement channels. He observed a growing transition of travel search behavior from desktop to mobile, and crucially, ‘from Google search to social media.’ This trend positions social media as an increasingly dominant platform for travel-related searches. Airbnb aims to capitalize on this shift, with Chesky expressing confidence in the company’s ability to leverage social channels for homes, services, and experiences.
