Airbnb's (ABNB 1.03%) business has bounced back considerably well to pre-pandemic levels, especially in one interesting area. In this video clip from "Ask Us Anything" on Motley Fool Live, recorded on July 1, Fool.com contributors Rachel Warren and Toby Bordelon discuss how long-term stays have contributed significantly to revenues.
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Rachel Warren: One of the things that's interesting is, for example, just revenue in the most recent quarter was up 80% from the first quarter of 2019. One of the really durable trends that I think ties in with our discussion that we've been having this whole past 40-some minutes changes in remote work is those long-term stays, so stays of 28 days or more. That every quarter keeps being Airbnb's fastest-growing category by TripLink. That continues to be true even compared to 2019, not just 2020 or 2021.
I think when I look at a business like Airbnb, would I want to pay that premium for another travel company, there's very few? The reason I like Airbnb and I have not someone who had been particularly hyped up on the travel spaces and investor personally before, is I think that they are not just a travel company.
There's been this discussion of how they're kind of a tech company masked as a travel company just based on their platform. I think that they cater to a really broad demographic that goes far beyond just the average traveler. I think that's what gives them a lot of opportunity within this space that other companies just don't have.
Toby Bordelon: I will say on the PE issue, note that their earnings are not, well in Q1 of this year, they were having a net loss. We're looking at maybe a 77 for PE I'm assuming. With the growing company notes, you just remember that they don't always have earnings and they don't always intend to have earnings as they are reinvesting in the business which is honestly a bad thing. That doesn't necessarily give you great insight and it's not necessarily as relevant as it might be for a mature company.
But the great thing about them, you look at cash flow and they did have operating cash flow and free cash flow for over a billion dollars for Q1 this year. They're making money again. If you look at the last couple of years, you'll note they hit the pandemic and demand looked like a disaster for the first part of 2020 in terms of their revenue numbers, but they have made a massive bounce back as you noted. We're looking at the comps to that 2019 quarter, higher gross booking value, higher revenue. It's certainly looking really good to them in terms of getting back to where they need to be.
