Posted on 02/14/2021 3:13:55 AM PST by EBH
2020 was not pretty for Expedia Group’s business.
The pandemic hit the Seattle travel giant hard last year with travel restrictions placed across the globe. Revenue dropped 57% to $5.2 billion and gross bookings fell 66% to $36.7 billion in 2020, Expedia reported today as part of its fourth quarter earnings rundown. The company posted a loss in each quarter of 2020 after three consecutive profitable quarters in 2019.
Expedia shares were down slightly after its holiday quarter missed expectations for revenue ($920 million) and profit (-$2.64 per share). Analysts expected revenue of $1.12 billion and earnings per share of -$1.97.
Expedia CEO Peter Kern noted “signs of hope” with vaccine approvals, but rising COVID-19 cases and other travel shutdowns still hurt the company’s business.
“As a result, Q4 did not show any real sequential progress other than some signs of modest improvement around the holidays that carried into the early part of 2021,” he said in a statement.
Even still, analysts at Wedbush held their 12-month stock price target of $160/share. Expedia shares were trading at about $149/share on Thursday.
“Despite the 4Q miss, our estimates are largely unchanged, although as management continues to underscore, our model is at the whims of not only near-term trends in COVID transmission, but also the efficacy of the rollout as well as the regulatory stances of countless governing bodies,” Wedbush wrote in a report.
U.S. travel spending dropped 42% in 2020 to $679 billion, according to Tourism Economics. The industry bounced back after the March lockdowns last year, but still remains well below regular levels with the ongoing pandemic.
Expedia Group, based in Seattle, includes travel brands such as Vrbo, Orbitz, Hotwire, Trivago, Hotels.com, and Egencia in addition to the flagship Expedia.com. Kern, a longtime Expedia Group board member, has been CEO since April.
Expedia responded to the economic and health crisis by raising $3.2 billion in debt and equity in April. It also made additional cutbacks including employee furloughs and executive salary reductions, and named longtime board member Kern as its new CEO. Kern had been overseeing the company’s operations with Chairman Barry Diller since the ouster of former CEO Mark Okerstrom and CFO Alan Pickerill in December 2019.
In addition to the COVID-19 crisis, Expedia also continues to deal with Google’s dual role as a rival in online travel, and a key source of customers through search traffic and paid advertising.
One bright spot for Expedia is its vacation rental platform Vrbo, which now has a higher revenue per room night than the rest of the company’s lodging business.
Vrbo saw blowback online for not following the lead of competitor Airbnb, which blocked and canceled reservations in the Washington, D.C., area during inauguration week last month following the violent storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Vrbo ended up blocking new bookings in and around the nation’s capital that week.
Airbnb went public in December and its stock has been climbing. Airbnb is now valued at nearly $130 billion, compared to Expedia’s market capitalization of $21 billion.
Expedia stock sunk in March 2020 but has rebounded back to pre-pandemic levels, trading at around $149/share on Thursday.
So much for the V shaped recovery. The stock market thinks there is a V shape recovery, which is disconnected to the reality of the economy. Go figure.
FUN FACT
Chelsea Clinton is on the Board of Directors of Expedia Group.
The 320 million of employees (globally) in the travel, tourism and associated industries (25 million in the USA) were absolutely crushed.
Liberals love it due to climate change garbage
Some here love it as they don’t think it’s was essential industry
In the US, Amazon,Walmart and other starter industry jobs love as there are now 25 million desperate workers willing to work for part-time minimum wage.
Yup, unfortunately there aren’t many good investment options out there. Bonds are also overpriced, banks aren’t paying any interest, and real estate is getting stupid expensive quickly
Dogecoin has backed off some in the last few days, but is still over 1000% return YTD. Wish I had bought some last year or even 6 weeks ago. If you ride these fad investments you can really do well.
Good. Keep supporting Democrats idiots
>>Chelsea Clinton is on the Board of Directors of Expedia Group.
and that is why I stopped booking all my travel thru them. Shop for prices on expedia, book direct with hotel or airline instead.
Not seeing many line up for part time minimum wages here in NC.. they get paid more to stay home during Covid.
I owned a food wholesale business years ago. I had a lot of dealings with Walmart buyers, district managers, and store directors. They all would say they loved it when times were hard. They got good help, dirt cheap. Biggest bunch of asses I ever did business with.
I played that game in 1999 and 2000. Did really well for a while before it burned down. It’s more like casino game and in the case of Doge was just lucky about what Musk tweeted. Hard to predict that kind of thing
It’s better for hotels if you do that as well, and you are more likely to get better service and a better room plus hotel Points. Hotels prioritize “name your price” inventory last, with regular online travel agency bookings second to last. Of course, right now hotels are only 40% occupied so not a huge issue I suppose
If you aren’t offering at least $12, nearly impossible to find anyone even remotely decent in larger cities and top tourist destinations.
“Expedia responded to the economic and health crisis by raising $3.2 billion in debt and equity in April. It also made additional cutbacks including employee furloughs and executive salary reductions”
Oddly unmentioned are the several rounds of layoffs.
She probably does as much for Expedia as she did for NBC “news”
Which was nothing
I am in travel ancillary business and yes...we got crushed. I have been looking for a part-time job since the New Year. Absolutely jobs are being advertised, but there’s hundreds of people applying for them. So far I have had 5 interviews, but no offers. I have a hunch it is an age related issue. I’m 58 and there’s talk that companies are nervous to hire what they perceive as higher risk workers for Covid.
Didn’t know that!
They bought the HQ from a well known bio-tech company (Amgen?) a couple years ago when Expedia's CEO decided to pursue a business plan of rapid expansion.
Expedia's former HQ was a modest office building in a Seattle suburb.
Their old building is still empty. The local rumor was that Bezos-Amazon planned to move in, but after COVID-19, Bezos is seriously re-thinking his own office expansion into suburban Seattle.
Anyway, I am wondering if Expedia is now thinking about moving BACK to its former suburban HQ!
Not seeing many line up for part time minimum wages here in NC.. they get paid more to stay home during Covid.
——————-
Benefits are fast running out.
Mostly everyone is on PEUC now (and that initially ran out beginning of November for most people and for everyone end of December. Only now 2 months later was it restored. For 11 weeks only.
No further extensions in the pipeline.
So everyone will be forced fish that minimum-wage starter job path again.
—
80 million lost jobs during coronavirus and the lockdowns. Almost 800k new claims each week (not counting PUA claims).
Most people are like me. Former career position making 60 to 120k a year. Personally, I can’t get back into my field due to extreme Indian domination and racism in my field, not even at entry-level.
So from career-level position to minimum wage starter job has been the jobs story this year for many (estimated as high as 70% were forced into this)
Only real jobs (in Denver at least) are Amazon warehouse distribution in Thornton/Aurora, big box stores like Walmart and Target or grocery store jobs. All minimum wage.
“So far I have had 5 interviews, but no offers. I have a hunch it is an age related issue. I’m 58”
If you haven’t already, take older positions and dates of education off your resume.
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