What Does Booking Holdings Offer That Expedia Does Not?

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Investors buy Expedia (EXPE) and Booking Holdings (BKNG) for the same thing: the hotel nights travelers book through them. Yet over the past year, Expedia stock returned 26.4% while Booking lost 25.9%. The two companies diverge on who brings in those bookings. Expedia credited B2B, its business supplying travel to partner companies, for its second-quarter revenue growth. Booking, meanwhile, builds on travelers who come straight to Booking.com. Booking said the direct share of its consumer business has held in the mid-60% range over the past four quarters. So what sets Booking apart from Expedia, and what did each company forecast for the rest of 2026?

Expedia Raised Its Forecast, Booking Holdings Lowered Its Own

In its August 5 report, Expedia raised its forecasts for 2026. A day earlier, Booking said it now expects lower gross bookings than it did before.

In the second quarter, Expedia’s revenue rose 14.0% from a year earlier. Citing the strength of the first half, management raised its full-year revenue forecast to $16.1 billion at the midpoint, from $15.8 billion.

Booking posted an 8.1% revenue increase in the same quarter. Management said the lower bookings forecast came mainly from slower growth in flight tickets, and that its outlook for accommodation remained largely unchanged.

For you, those are different kinds of news. Expedia raised its revenue forecast for the business as a whole, while Booking’s cut is about one part of its business. Expedia also lifted its full-year gross bookings forecast to $130 billion at the midpoint, from $128 billion. That is the measure Booking lowered. Both companies still expect slower growth in the third quarter, with Expedia guiding to revenue growth of about 5% to 8% and Booking to 4% to 6%.

Expedia Invests In Partners, Booking Hands Cash To Shareholders

Expedia is putting money into its partner business, while Booking is handing more of its cash back to shareholders. Expedia has over 70,000 partners, and in May, it announced its intent to acquire CarTrawler, a B2B car rental and insurance platform. On the August 5 call, management said partner mix and the pace of its own investment are the big drivers of B2B margins in the near term.

Expedia makes that investment while holding more cash than it owes. At the end of June, its cash and short-term investments exceeded its debt by $1.44 billion.

Booking’s debt, by contrast, was $3.48 billion higher than its cash and short-term investments on the same date. Over the past twelve months, Booking’s buybacks came to 9.1% of its market value, against 5.6% for Expedia. In the second quarter, Booking also raised new debt.

Booking Holdings Earns About Twice Expedia’s Operating Margin

Over the twelve months to the end of June, Booking kept 34.5% of its revenue as operating profit, against 17.4% for Expedia. Booking’s revenue also grew faster over the three years to June, averaging 13.5% a year against 8.6% for Expedia. Yet you pay about the same for each company’s earnings. Booking trades at 16.0 times its earnings, and Expedia trades at 16.7 times. Both margins and both multiples use reported results, not adjusted ones, over the same twelve months.

Expedia is ahead on debt and on its most recent results. Its debt equals 16.7% of its market value, against 17.9% for Booking. In the latest quarter, Expedia also grew faster and raised its forecast.

Booking, then, comes out ahead on profitability and on its longer growth record. Expedia’s faster growth in the latest quarter is the result that could change that reading. Each company’s revenue growth is the number to watch when the two report their third quarters in November 2026.

A lead built on past growth can stall once the growth stops. Look at Tesla, which still sells 54% of US electric cars even as its deliveries fell from 1.81 million in 2023 to 1.64 million in 2025. Read Trefis Big Story: How Tesla Blundered.

How To Act On EXPE?

Not necessarily on Expedia alone, if your goal is long-term wealth. Wealth is built by owning the companies that keep outperforming, the leaders of their industries, wherever they are. Here are two companies from Expedia’s own industry that have beaten it. Over the five years to October 2026, Marriott International stock rose 161% and Hilton Worldwide stock rose 151%, while Expedia stock rose 74%.

Finding companies like these takes comparison across industries and sectors, and that is what the Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio does. It holds 30 quality companies in equal weight and, since its inception in September 2020, has returned more than 105%, ahead of a benchmark that combines the S&P 500, S&P Mid-cap and Russell 2000. See how we find the leaders.

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