In the travel sector, no category spends more on TV advertising than travel websites. Through July this year, they have spent an estimated $400 million on TV ads, about as much as all other travel categories combined — including airlines, hotels/motels, cities/destinations, cruise lines, and resorts/theme parks.
Among the competing brands, Trivago led the spending at 26%, followed by Expedia at 11.8%. Hotels.com and Booking.com were neck-and-neck with 9.5% and 9.3% each, while Trip Advisor trailed just behind at 8.9%. Among those in the “Other” bucket was disruptive startup Airbnb, which broke into the top 10 with 4.6% of the TV advertising spend.
The ad backed by the most money was a Trivago Spanish-language spot aired across Univision at $22.1 million. But it was Airbnb that proved the outperformer in the category due mostly to its “Never a Stranger” ad, which alone was supported by $16.5 million in spending — the third highest among
all individual ads — and took the most-engaging ad title with more than 25% share of voice. The company also took the overall digital engagement title with over 34% of the share of voice in the category.
