Airbnb Is Making Investors Happy -- Here's Why

Travelers have recently turned to Airbnb (ABNB 1.02%) for its flexible and unique lodging options. And that's making Airbnb investors very happy.

In this clip from "The Rank" on Motley Fool Live, recorded on May 23, Zane Fracek and Jason Hall discuss some of the travel company's key metrics from the most recent quarter, and what to look for in future reports.

Zane Fracek: They had a great quarter. Investors were happy with it all across the board, brought in record revenue, I think record nights and experiences booked, and narrowed the net loss. I think it's the best they've performed an a first quarter on the net loss. Usually they've been marginally profitable in Q3s it's generally a pretty strong quarter for them. This is a summer stock basket, that would make sense. This quarter, looking good made me more bullish as a shareholder. Some of the long-term things that I'm focused on are the flexibility that people now want to work hybrid or work remote from wherever they want. There's all these different modalities and that goes back to what we were talking about with the airlines. We just don't know if business travel is going to come back because we don't know if it's more efficient or for what use cases it's more efficient to go meet in person, maybe you're better off Zoom-ing or something. I think the return to travel, travel is also really strong for vacation individuals. Also like longer-term travel, as we're seeing on Airbnb, their longer-term stays are growing faster people are want to stay for a longer.

Jason Hall: That four-plus-week metric that they report stays there 28 days or more, four weeks or more is the one thing that I always like. That's the first thing I find whenever they report because it's impressive how that's become a major cohort. Even here we are moving to where companies are starting to go back to the offices and the ability to work remotely and travel while you're working is getting a little harder and you have more and more people are still going to Airbnb and booking those four-week-plus stays.

Fracek: Yes that wouldn't have been my prediction of what Airbnb would do. It's like a couch surfing website but now we have people who, like Brian Chesky, the CEO, will live on Airbnb and just live wherever they want to go, there's some nomadic lifestyle, people are valuing shared experiences. That's the other part of their business. Not talked about often it's not as big they have the stays, but then they also have the experiences which are things that you can go do and hosts will host these experiences. Whether it's horseback riding or surfing, whatever it is it's another way to get you out there doing something and sharing experiences and stays with people. There are some headwinds like the geopolitical concerns of Ukraine, Russia, and travel. I believe they pulled out of Russia and they have very limited exposure to Ukraine as well. Inflation is going to be probably minimal impact because experiences are something that people are willing to pay up for more and more and this is I think the biggest core of my thesis on the company. It's how much Americans prioritize experiences over products more and more, especially younger generations.

Hall: I think we're going to see that trend proliferate internationally. Let's go ahead and wrap this one up here Zane. I think here's the key thing we all ranked this one No. 1, I think that says a tremendous amount about it.