Bookings rose while share prices diverged
Trip.com gained 95.8% in 2024, fell 12.2% in 2025 and was down a further 34.7% through October 23, 2026. Within listed online travel, Booking Holdings rose 8.6% in 2025 and Expedia gained 53.3%. Traveler counts alone cannot explain the split. Trip.com's annual filing, Booking's Q2 10-Q, and Expedia's Q2 10-Q need to be read against the same operating question.
Q2 2026: revenue grew at all three platforms
Trip.com's quarterly net revenue rose 6% to RMB15.7bn, with accommodation revenue also up 6% to RMB6.6bn. Booking's revenue rose 8.1% to $7.352bn and Expedia's increased 14% to $4.315bn. Booking reported 325m room nights. Expedia reported 111.5m booked room nights, up 6%, in its earnings release. The reporting currencies and revenue recognition methods differ, so these dollar values cannot be combined or turned into market shares. They establish only that travel transactions continued across the three companies.
How bookings become revenue differs. Hotel-partner commissions produced substantially all of Trip.com's RMB26.1bn of FY2025 accommodation revenue. Booking's Q2 2026 merchant revenue grew 15% to $5.127bn, while agency revenue fell 7% to $1.903bn. Management describes an ongoing shift toward merchant bookings, where it handles customer payments. Expedia's lodging revenue grew 13% in the quarter, while air revenue fell 13%. Booking volume, take rates and payment responsibility are distinct clocks.
Trip.com's hotel terms are a separate variable
A RMB5.2bn charge from a 2026 decision by China's market regulator drove much of Trip.com's RMB2.4bn Q2 net loss. Accommodation revenue also includes a regulator-imposed contra-revenue item. Trip.com's July 6-K reports the administrative decision, and its September results show the income impact. The one-time charge cannot by itself establish future commission rates. Hotel pricing discretion and platform contract terms must be checked separately.
A named partner shows the limit of the average. Trip.com's aggregate accommodation revenue grew 21% in 2025, while commissions paid by H World fell from RMB283m in 2024 to RMB182m in 2025. That is a change in this partnership's commission flow, not proof that H World's total room demand fell. Trip.com separately paid Tongcheng Travel RMB61m to promote hotels. The same hotel distribution chain contains both money-in and money-out relationships for the platform.
The next evidence
The next test is whether Trip.com's hotel commissions and pricing terms recover, with corroboration from H World and Tongcheng disclosures. Peer revenue growth alone does not make Trip.com's share-price lag an investment signal. Its share-price decline alone does not establish a collapse in booking demand. Customer demand, platform commissions and regulatory costs need separate measures. Baidu's roughly 7% stake and Booking's 2014 convertible note are capital links and do not belong in the booking-commission chain.
The return comparison incorporates Trip.com through October 23, 2026 and Booking and Expedia through September 4, 2026. It makes no ranking claim across those unmatched 2026 dates.