Expedia delivered a strong Q1 2026, beating expectations with 13% bookings growth and significant margin expansion, driven by marketing efficiency and AI tools. However, management struck a cautious tone for Q2 and the full year, citing geopolitical volatility (Middle East conflict, Mexico advisories) that impacted March demand, though April saw a rebound. The company announced a new exclusive hotel partnership with Uber and highlighted its AI-driven growth opportunities. Q1 bookings grew 13% to $35.5B and revenue grew 15% to $3.4B, with EBITDA margin expanding nearly 6 points, the highest Q1 in 15 years.
Expedia delivered a strong Q1 2026, beating expectations with 13% bookings growth and significant margin expansion, driven by marketing efficiency and AI tools. However, management struck a cautious tone for Q2 and the full year, citing geopolitical volatility (Middle East conflict, Mexico advisories) that impacted March demand, though April saw a rebound. The company announced a new exclusive hotel partnership with Uber and highlighted its AI-driven growth opportunities. Q1 bookings grew 13% to $35.5B and revenue grew 15% to $3.4B, with EBITDA margin expanding nearly 6 points, the highest Q1 in 15 years.
Management expressed confidence in the company's strategy and execution, highlighted strong results and forward-looking momentum, and reiterated full-year guidance despite macro volatility.
Q1 bookings grew 13% to $35.5B and revenue grew 15% to $3.4B, with EBITDA margin expanding nearly 6 points, the highest Q1 in 15 years.
Management emphasized AI as a growth opportunity, citing improvements in personalization, supply onboarding, service automation, and marketing efficiency. They noted AI-driven channels are small but growing fast, with ChatGPT ads live and Answer Engine Optimization as the…
Consumer brands bookings grew 10%, the fastest in 12 quarters, while B2B bookings grew 22%, led by Rapid API.
Management emphasized AI as a growth opportunity, citing improvements in personalization, supply onboarding, service automation, and marketing efficiency. They noted AI-driven channels are small but growing fast, with ChatGPT ads live and Answer Engine Optimization as the fastest-growing channel, while acknowledging OpenAI's pullback from in-app checkout as reinforcing the value of their full-serv
Consumer brands bookings grew 10%, fastest in 12 quarters. Management expressed confidence in the company's strategy and execution, highlighted strong results and forward-looking momentum, and reiterated full-year guidance despite macro volatility.
Management expressed confidence in the company's strategy and execution, highlighted strong results and forward-looking momentum, and reiterated full-year guidance despite macro volatility.
“In March, we experienced a slowdown with rising cancellations in select corridors. First, with the announcement of travel advisories in Mexico, and second, with the conflict in the Middle East.”
“AI-enabled tools are driving hundreds of millions of dollars in realized marketing value through greater productivity and workflow automation.”
| Metric | Period | Range | Midpoint | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Op margin | FY2026 | 1%–1.25% | 1.125% | MAINTAINED |
| Op margin | FY2026 Q2 | 0.5%–1% | 0.75% | GUIDED |
| Revenue | FY2026 Q2 | 9%–11% | 10% | GUIDED |
| Revenue | FY2026 | 6%–9% | 7.5% | MAINTAINED |
| Issued | Metric | Target | Guide | Actual | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2025 Q4 | Gross margin | FY2026 Q1 | 3%–4% | 89% | Met / beat |
Expedia's exclusive hotel partnership with Uber (UBER) expands Uber's offerings while giving Expedia access to new demand. The deal is expected to generate incremental demand for Expedia's hotel supply and is a positive for its B2B business.
“We announced an exclusive partnership with Bank of Montreal Air Miles and just last week became the exclusive hotel partner for Uber.”
… re-accelerated throughout the month. Total booked room nights in the first quarter were up 6%, including mid-single digits in the U.S., low single digits in EMEA, and low double digits in the rest of the world. Our domestic U.S. room night growth remained stable, but it was partially offset by travel advisories in Mexico and less promotional activity by select B2B partners. B2B once again delivered healthy performance with bookings up 22%. We announced an exclusive partnership with Bank of Montreal Air Miles and just last week became the exclusive hotel partner for Uber. Uber will also be in our Expedia app, making travelers' trips more seamless. Our consumer brands grew bookings by 10%, the fastest pace in 12 quarters. Active loyalty members were at mid-single digits, and we continue to see even faster growth in our higher tiers. For the first time, vacation rentals on Expedia reached an annualized run rate of a billion dollars, demonstrating that our investment in a unified lodging shopping experience is scaling successfully. And we also continue to expand our supplier-funded promotions. Twenty-five percent more hotels participated in our March sale this year, and more than …
The exclusive partnership with Bank of Montreal (BMO) Air Miles program will drive incremental B2B bookings and expand Expedia's partner network.
“We announced an exclusive partnership with Bank of Montreal Air Miles”
… April and booking activity re-accelerated throughout the month. Total booked room nights in the first quarter were up 6%, including mid-single digits in the U.S., low single digits in EMEA, and low double digits in the rest of the world. Our domestic U.S. room night growth remained stable, but it was partially offset by travel advisories in Mexico and less promotional activity by select B2B partners. B2B once again delivered healthy performance with bookings up 22%. We announced an exclusive partnership with Bank of Montreal Air Miles and just last week became the exclusive hotel partner for Uber. Uber will also be in our Expedia app, making travelers' trips more seamless. Our consumer brands grew bookings by 10%, the fastest pace in 12 quarters. Active loyalty members were at mid-single digits, and we continue to see even faster growth in our higher tiers. For the first time, vacation rentals on Expedia reached an annualized run rate of a billion dollars, demonstrating that our investment in a unified lodging shopping experience is scaling successfully. And we also continue to expand our supplier-funded promotions. Twenty-five percent more hotels participated in our March …
Expedia is leveraging OpenAI's ChatGPT as a distribution channel for ads and traffic, which represents a long-term growth opportunity for new customer acquisition.
“Answer Engine Optimization is now our fastest-growing channel, and in February, we went live with ChatGPT ads.”
… platform combines intelligent automation, strong partnerships, and human support to deepen travelers' trust so they know we always have their back. AI also strengthens our ability to acquire traffic and market more effectively. While roughly two-thirds of our bookings come through direct channels, AI platforms are an opportunity to grow through indirect channels. We moved early here, leveraging our technical strengths built up over many years. Answer Engine Optimization is now our fastest-growing channel, and in February, we went live with ChatGPT ads. Traffic and bookings from AI-driven channels remain small, but we're encouraged by the mix of new users, conversion, and average purchase size. This is a long-term opportunity to reach a large, engaged audience while diversifying our marketing investments. More broadly, AI is improving our creative and supercharging our testing abilities. Overall, AI-enabled tools are driving hundreds of millions of dollars in realized marketing value through greater productivity and workflow automation. Stepping back, I want to be clear that if we're moving to take advantage of opportunities, we're also working deliberately to ensure our …
Expedia is experimenting with Anthropic's Claude AI assistant as another channel for customer acquisition and engagement.
“We're now integrated and live with Claude.”
… know, Gemini, whether it's ChatGPT, Claude, It's about making sure that our brands show up well there, and then making sure that where we can, we then get traffic and we can land into our own brands. Now, some of that is answer engine optimization. And I talked about the work we're doing there. It's the fastest growing channel for us still very small, but it's the fastest growing channel. And then there are integrations that we can do. We did an early integration with ChatGPT. We're now integrated and live with Claude. And again, these are still early days, but what we're learning from them is, you know, what is the user behavior? How do we most seamlessly land them into our apps? Which, by the way, it's similar to what we've always had in performance channels, where It's not only about getting the eyeballs on your ads or onto your brand, but also perfecting how you land them into your product so that it's a seamless experience so that you can get them to convert and then come back direct. So again, it's early days. The teams are experimenting a lot. I expect we're going to continue to experiment over the quarters to come. It's a fast evolving space, but it's one that we think …