The limits of Airbnb's rebound

While Airbnb is surging on the stock market, its fundamental business might not be quite as healthy as I thought back in September, when an Edison Trends report showed consumers spending 86% more money with the company than they did during the same week of 2019.

Why it matters: Edison Trends strips out any transactions over a certain amount — in this case, $30,000. There are still outliers near that amount, however, — very expensive rentals for multiple months, perhaps — that can skew the aggregates. When the company went back to re-run its data with a different cohort of users, the difference between 2019 and 2020 largely disappeared.

By the numbers: Airbnb is still at or above its 2019 sales, per Edison Trends, and is roughly even with Marriott. But Marriott has a lot of upside since it's still 45% below its 2019 levels.

The bottom line: Airbnb has executed an astonishing bounce back from existential crisis to a $106 billion valuation. But a backlash might be brewing.

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