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What Are the Key Sales KPIs for the Online Travel Agency (OTA) Industry in 2027?

By Kory White · Updated Nov 2026 · 8 min read
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Direct answer

The sales KPIs that matter most to an online travel agency are gross bookings (the total value of travel booked), room nights or nights booked (volume), revenue as a share of gross bookings (often called take rate), average daily rate (price), marketing spend relative to bookings, and the share of demand that arrives directly rather than through paid channels. The three largest listed platforms report most of these themselves. Booking Holdings reported 1,235 million room nights and $186.1 billion in gross bookings for 2025, up 8% and 12%, with revenue of $26.9 billion; Expedia Group reported $119,590 million in gross bookings and 415.4 million booked room nights, both up 8%, with revenue of $14,733 million; and Airbnb reported 533 million nights and seats booked and $91,273 million in gross booking value, up 8% and 12%.

The companies define and disclose these metrics differently, so compare trends and definitions, not raw totals. Expedia states a revenue margin of 12.3% of gross bookings for 2025; Booking and Airbnb do not state a take rate in the documents read here, and this page does not compute one. No primary source read here publishes an industry-wide OTA conversion rate, so none is given. Every source was read on November 2, 2026. This page is not financial advice.

Gross bookings: the headline volume KPI

Gross bookings is the total retail value of travel booked through a platform, usually before the OTA takes its cut and net of cancellations. It is the denominator for most other OTA ratios. Booking Holdings describes it as an operating and statistical metric that captures the total dollar value, generally inclusive of taxes and fees, of all travel services booked by customers, net of cancellations. Expedia defines gross bookings as the total retail value of transactions booked for agency and merchant transactions, reduced for cancellations and refunds.

Hypothetical example: a traveler books a hotel stay for $600 and a flight for $400 in one checkout. Gross bookings for that transaction is $1,000 even if the platform keeps only a small part of it as revenue. The B2B line in Expedia's disclosure is a reminder to split gross bookings by channel, because B2B grew 20% against 3% for B2C in 2025.

Expedia's 10-K adds a scale note: its gross bookings represent a single-digit percentage of total worldwide travel spending.

Room nights and nights booked: volume without price

A room night is one room booked for one night. Because it strips out price, it shows whether growth comes from more travelers or from higher rates. Airbnb's equivalent is nights and seats booked. Booking's 10-K says reservations of room nights, rental car days and airline tickets capture the volume of units booked.

Hypothetical example: if gross bookings grow 12% and room nights grow 8%, price, mix or non-lodging products explain the gap. That is the reason to track both KPIs together. Booking's 2025 figures show exactly that pattern: gross bookings up 12% against room nights up 8%.

Airbnb's metric includes seats on experiences and services as well as nights, and Booking's gross bookings include flights, car rentals and other travel, so the room night and gross bookings figures are not like-for-like across companies.

Revenue margin or take rate

Take rate is the share of gross bookings that the platform keeps as revenue. Expedia reports it as revenue margin, defined in its 10-K as revenue as a percentage of gross bookings. It is the clearest measure of what an OTA earns on each dollar of travel it sells, and it moves with business mix: merchant bookings are recorded differently from agency bookings, and wholesale or B2B partner business carries its own economics.

Hypothetical example: a $200 hotel booking on which the platform books $25 of revenue has a 12.5% take rate. The same $200 sold through a partner that is paid a commission may produce less revenue even though gross bookings count the same.

Booking Holdings and Airbnb do not state a take rate in the documents read for this page, so none is given for them. Dividing their revenue by gross bookings is possible, but their definitions of revenue differ, so treat any such ratio as your own calculation, not a reported figure.

Average daily rate (ADR)

ADR is the average price paid per room night. Rising ADR lifts gross bookings and revenue without more volume, but it also depends on regional mix and currency. Airbnb's 10-K reports a 3% increase in ADR in 2025 compared with the prior year. Expedia's 10-K says ADRs for rooms booked increased 1% in 2025 after decreasing 1% in 2024. Booking's 10-K says global ADRs on a constant-currency basis were about in line with the prior year, and up approximately 1% excluding regional mix changes.

Hypothetical example: a destination mix shifting toward lower-priced regions can lower the average rate even when every hotel raises prices, which is why Booking's disclosure separates the mix effect.

Marketing spend relative to bookings

Marketing is the largest operating cost for OTAs and the KPI that turns volume into profit. The usual ratio is marketing expense as a percentage of gross bookings, or of revenue. Booking publishes the first for the quarter; Expedia and Airbnb publish dollar amounts.

Hypothetical example: if a platform spends $4 on marketing for every $100 of gross bookings, its marketing ratio is 4%. A rise to 5% with flat revenue per booking means each booking costs more to win, which is the signal Booking's 4.5% versus 4.2% comparison speaks to.

Expedia's disclosure includes partner commissions inside direct selling and marketing, so its dollar figure is not comparable to a pure advertising budget.

Direct traffic and repeat demand

Direct traffic, travelers who come to the app or site without clicking a paid ad, is the lever behind marketing efficiency. Booking's 10-K says the mix of total room nights booked by consumers coming directly to its platforms was a mid-fifties percentage in 2025, that the mix of room nights booked on its mobile apps was also a mid-fifties percentage, and that the significant majority of app room nights are direct.

Hypothetical example: if 55 of every 100 room nights arrive without a paid click, only 45 need paid acquisition, so a platform can grow volume while its marketing ratio stays flat.

No source read for this page publishes a verified industry-wide repeat-booking rate for OTAs, so none is given. Track your own repeat rate as the share of bookers who book again within a set window.

Conversion rate and other KPIs with no primary benchmark

Conversion rate, bookings divided by visits or searches, is the most quoted OTA KPI and the least reliably benchmarked. Hypothetical example: 1,000 searches that produce 20 bookings is a 2% conversion rate.

None of the earnings releases or annual reports read for this page reports a conversion rate, and widely repeated industry figures come from vendor blogs without a stated method, so no number is given. Measure it by device, market, and traffic source on your own data.

The same applies to cancellation rate and customer acquisition cost: the filings show them only indirectly, through gross bookings net of cancellations and total marketing expense.

A scorecard to start with

Read together, the filings point to a short scorecard that ties volume, price and cost.

For outlook context, Expedia's February 12, 2026 release guided full-year 2026 gross bookings to $127 to $129 billion, up 6% to 8%, and revenue to $15.6 to $16.0 billion.

Questions people ask

What are the most important sales KPIs for an online travel agency?

Gross bookings, room nights, revenue as a percentage of gross bookings, ADR, marketing expense relative to bookings, and direct traffic share. Booking Holdings, Expedia Group and Airbnb each report most of these in their annual filings and earnings releases.

What is a typical OTA take rate?

Expedia reported a revenue margin of 12.3% of gross bookings for 2025, with B2C at 11.3% and B2B at 13.6%. Booking and Airbnb do not state a take rate in the documents read for this page.

How big are the largest OTAs?

For 2025, Booking Holdings reported gross bookings of $186.1 billion and 1,235 million room nights, Expedia Group $119,590 million and 415.4 million, and Airbnb $91,273 million of gross booking value and 533 million nights and seats booked.

How much do OTAs spend on marketing?

Booking reported marketing expenses of $8,186 million for 2025 and a fourth-quarter ratio of 4.5% of gross bookings. Expedia reported direct selling and marketing of $7,349 million, and Airbnb sales and marketing of $2,588 million.

Is there a published benchmark for OTA conversion rate?

Not in any primary filing read for this page. Figures repeated online usually lack a stated method, so measure conversion on your own data.

Sources

Figures were read from the linked filings on November 2, 2026. All company figures are company-reported. Where no primary benchmark was found, the page says so instead of estimating. Worked examples are hypothetical. This page is not financial advice.

Top photo: Basile Morin / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

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