Key Takeaways
- Every recent price target on Booking Holdings (BKNG) is above the stock, from Wells Fargo’s $190 to UBS’s $265, even after a 27% drop this year.
- Wall Street’s estimates already have Airbnb’s (ABNB) revenue growing faster than Booking’s this year and next, so the bear case that Booking is losing share is mostly priced in.
- Booking’s alternative-accommodation room nights grew faster in Q3, but its Q4 guidance calls for adjusted revenue growth of just 0% to 2%.
- The $190 target looks safe. The bigger risk is that the Q4 slowdown pulls down next year’s estimates, and Airbnb’s Nov. 5 report is the next read.
Booking Holdings is down 28% this year, and Wall Street still can’t find a price target anywhere near the stock.
On Tuesday, UBS trimmed its target to $265 from $274 and kept its Buy rating. The lowest of the five recent calls is Wells Fargo’s $190 with a Hold, and it’s still 22% above the stock’s latest close of $155.67.
The bear case is that Airbnb and AI search are taking travel demand away from Booking. If that’s right, the revenue and earnings estimates behind every one of those targets are too high.
Even the low target is well above the stock
Here are the five calls since Oct. 21, with each target’s upside from the latest close:
- UBS (Nov. 3): Buy, $265, from $274, 70% upside
- Bank of America (Oct. 26): Buy, $232, from $234, 49%
- Robert W. Baird (Oct. 27): Buy, $223, from $230, 43%
- RBC Capital (Oct. 21): Buy, $220, 41%
- Wells Fargo (Oct. 27): Hold, $190, from $220, 22%
Four of the five cut their targets, and Wells Fargo cut the most.
But $190 is still about 18x the $10.46 of normalized EPS analysts expect from Booking this year. The stock trades at about 14x.
So even the cautious call asks for only a slightly higher multiple on earnings Wall Street already expects. That means the targets stand or fall on whether those estimates hold up.
TIKR tracks 37 analysts on Booking Holdings. How many say “Buy”?
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Wall Street already expects Airbnb to grow faster
On a recent episode of We Study Billionaires, co-host Shawn O’Malley made the share-loss case. He compared the 4% growth in alternative accommodations from Booking’s Q2 investor deck with Airbnb’s 10% growth in nights and seats booked, and concluded: “It does appear that Airbnb is still taking market share from them.”
Analysts agree. They expect Booking’s revenue to grow about 9% this year, to $29.3 billion, and another 9% in 2027, to $32.0 billion:
That’s a slowdown from 14% growth in fiscal 2025, when revenue reached $26.9 billion.
Airbnb’s estimates go the other way. Analysts expect its revenue to grow 16% this year, to $14.2 billion, and 11% in 2027, to $15.8 billion:
Airbnb grew 10% in fiscal 2025, slower than Booking did.
So analysts already expect Airbnb to grow faster at the top line for the next two years. The share-loss story is already in the estimates.
The Q3 backed the estimates
Booking reported its Q3 after Tuesday’s close. Room nights grew 7%, up from 5% in Q2, and adjusted revenue rose 9% to $9.8 billion.
Alternative-accommodation room nights at Booking.com also grew 7%, up from the 4% O’Malley cited. (Reported revenue fell 1% to $8.9 billion because of a one-time charge.)
The targets are built on EPS. Analysts expect Booking’s normalized EPS to climb from $9.12 in fiscal 2025 to $10.46 this year and $12.37 in 2027:
Adjusted EPS rose 17% in Q3 to $4.66, faster than the 15% analysts expect for the full year.
Booking also doesn’t need to win the top-line race to get there. From fiscal 2023 to 2025, its revenue rose 26% while normalized EPS rose 50%, as Booking widened its margins and bought back stock.
Q4 is the real test
The weak spot is the guidance. Booking expects Q4 room nights to grow just 1% to 3% and adjusted revenue 0% to 2%. Management blamed the Middle East conflict and softer international travel.
Going into the report, analysts expected about 9% revenue growth this year and next. A flat Q4 makes this year’s number harder to hit.
If the slowdown runs into 2027, analysts will have to cut the estimates the targets are built on.
None of that is about Airbnb, though. Airbnb reports its Q3 after the close on Nov. 5, and that report will show whether it’s seeing the same slowdown.
AI is a small slice, for now
Morgan Stanley’s Stephen Grambling raised the other threat on the bank’s Thoughts on the Market podcast.
He said hotels typically pay online travel agencies 10-20% commissions for a branded hotel, or 20-30% for an independent one, against about 5% for a direct booking.
In Morgan Stanley’s searches across eight US destinations, traditional search engines sent travelers to official hotel websites 13% of the time, and AI searches did so 97% of the time.
As AI agents help travelers book, he said, “we could see a major pivot in brand preference and booking channel.”
Booking said on its call that referrals from large language models are still well under 1% of Booking.com’s room nights.
It also said the 10 largest hotel chains make up only a low-double-digit percentage of them. So most of Booking’s room nights come from outside the big chains, and it’s those chains’ loyalty programs that drove the shift Morgan Stanley found.
The low target looks safe
Wall Street’s estimates already have Airbnb growing faster than Booking, and Booking’s Q3 grew faster than those estimates assume.
At about 15x this year’s expected EPS, the stock is priced for more damage than its recent quarters show. Of the five targets, Wells Fargo’s $190 is the easiest to defend.
Frankly, I worry less about the share-loss argument than about Q4. But if Airbnb’s Nov. 5 report shows nights speeding up while Booking guides to 1% to 3%, I’d take the share-loss argument a lot more seriously.
So what is Booking Holdings stock actually worth?
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