Talkwalker’s Battle of the Brands: Airbnb vs Booking.com

Here’s a look at Airbnb vs Booking.com – two international travel giants that have monopolised the global hospitality industry for the better part of the last decade. When most people are making travel plans, they’re always using either one of the two to secure their accommodation.

Gone are the days when travel agents were the norm – the new digital economy has empowered people to not only find the best deals themselves – but also to find the best deals for every aspect of travel. AirBnB and Booking.com have a massive market share and we’re going to find out which of the two brands resonate the most with the digital savvy Indian.

Talkwalker, a social media analytics company, based in Luxembourg, takes a closer look at the buzz, using their platform. Talkwalker Analytics analyses the performance of mentions all over the internet and provides key metrics such as engagement, related themes, demographic data, geographic data and influencer data.

Mentions: It looks like Airbnb knows how to engage with Indian audiences better – considering that they have almost 10x the number of mentions that Booking.com has in the last 3 months. Both brands are heavily focusing on influencer marketing this year – eg. Sara Ali Khan for Booking.com and Santoshi Shetty for Airbnb, but what differentiates Airbnb from Booking.com is that they have an India specific channel on Twitter – which is hugely popular in India. However, the mentions game may not be hurting Booking.com since in recent interviews, Pepijn Rijvers mentioned that in 2017-2018 alone, there was a 68% increase in supply from India. The company is seriously considering expanding its investment in the Indian market based off of its recent results. (Instagram data not included).

Next week: (Which part of India prefers what brand?)