Airbnb conference call update: North American consumer has been strong
- Business is concentrated in top five core markets: US, UK, Canada, France and Australia. Those five markets comprise about 70% of our gross booking value. Been targeting markets outside of that top five, where there's a sizable opportunity to invest and gain penetration, providing a tailwind to global growth rates. Brazil is a huge success case with overseas investments.
- Planning to spend approximately $200-250 million this year on overseas market penetration.
- Believe in some kind of medium term growth in productivity from AI tools. Could easily see a 30% increase in technology and engineering productivity.
- Want the Airbnb app kind of similar to Amazon, to be one place for all of traveling and living needs. Not a very frequently used app. People typically use it once or twice a year. Long-term goal is for people to use it once or twice a week.
- Market dominated by hotels. Business continues to be a fraction of the overall lodging industry. There's plenty of room to grow.
- At the end of Q3 and consistent with Q3 results that played through with Q4, is that muted bookings growth over the summer was somewhat temporal. Folks sitting on the sidelines in terms of making their future bookings in the summer came back in the fall and did indeed make those bookings.
- Consumer and in particular the North American consumer has been strong and in particular has been strong in terms of contemplating future travel.