Excerpt from PhocusWire
Marketing spend by the leading online travel companies rocketed in 2021, to coincide with the relaxation of travel restrictions in their core markets.
The amounts being splashed out on various forms of advertising activity are not at the same levels of 2019, understandably, but the tried and trusted methods are back in vogue.
Booking Holdings, operator of the Booking.com, Kayak, Agoda and Priceline brands, spent $3.8 billion on marketing during 2021, up from the $2.2 billion figure over the course of the pandemic-hit 2020.
The company revealed a record $4.98 billion had been used on its marketing strategy in 2019.
In the final quarter of 2021, traditionnally one of the quarter three-month periods in a calendar year, Booking Holdings spent some $974 million on marketing, a considerable jump from the $386 million in the corresponding quarter in 2020.
Its closest like-for-like competitor in the online travel agency space, Expedia Group, also ramped up marketing spend in 2021.
In fact, it outspent Booking Holdings by around $300 million over the course of the year at $4.1 billion, an increase of 66% of the previous 12 months ($2.5 billion in 2020).
The group, which has Vrbo, Expedia, Trivago and Travelocity in its portfolio of brands, had also reached a company record of $6 billion in marketing spend in 2019.
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