EXPE vs TCOM: Which Is the Better Buy in 2026?
Last updated August 2026
Short answer
EXPE and TCOM are similarly sized, but TCOM trades noticeably cheaper on forward earnings (10.63x vs 12.87x): the market is paying up for EXPE's profile and pricing TCOM more conservatively, or for faster growth. Which you prefer comes down to the drivers you believe, and whether adding either over-concentrates what you already own.
EXPE vs TCOM: the tie-breaker metrics
Same yardstick, side by side (as of August 2026). Valuation lined up like this is most meaningful for two names in the same corner of the market, which these are. Figures are approximate; verify before investing.
| Metric | EXPE | TCOM | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Market cap | $35.38B | $28.32B | Size. The larger name is the incumbent; the smaller has more room to grow and more to prove. |
| Forward P/E | 12.87 | 10.63 | Valuation on next year's expected earnings, the same yardstick for both. Lower is cheaper for that growth; higher means the market is paying up. |
| Trailing P/E | 26.04 | 6.70 | Valuation on the last 12 months. A big drop from trailing to forward means the market expects earnings to jump, so more growth is already in the price. |
| Beta | 1.23 | -0.04 | Volatility vs the market. Above 1 swings harder than the index; below 1 is steadier. Higher beta means bigger drawdowns to hold through. |
| Price vs 52-week range | 87% of range | 17% of range | Where today's price sits between the 52-week low and high. Near the high is momentum with less margin of safety; near the low is out of favor or a discount, depending on why. |
| Price / book | 61.40 | 1.19 | How much you pay over book value. Very high can signal an asset-light, high-return business or a rich price. |
Reading it: TCOM is the cheaper of the two on forward earnings, but cheaper is not the same as better. Pair the valuation with growth (how far the forward P/E sits below the trailing P/E) and risk (beta) before you decide.
Before you buy: how EXPE and TCOM affect your concentration
The metrics above tell you which is the marginally better business. The bigger risk for most people is not picking the slightly worse stock, it is over-concentrating. EXPE and TCOM share themes, so owning both, or adding either to what you already hold, can quietly push a large share of your portfolio into one bet.
This is the part a generic comparison page cannot answer, because it depends on what you own. Connect your brokerage and Walnut shows your real, combined EXPE and TCOM exposure, flags overlap with your existing positions, and tells you if adding one would tip you past a concentration you are comfortable with, read-only by default, with your login staying at your broker. Walnut is not an investment adviser.
What does Expedia Group (EXPE) do?
Expedia Group (NASDAQ: EXPE), headquartered in Seattle, is one of the world's largest online travel companies, connecting travelers with accommodations, flights, rental cars, cruises, and activities. Its consumer (B2C) business runs a portfolio of brands including Brand Expedia, Hotels.com, Vrbo (whole-home and vacation rentals), Orbitz, Travelocity, Hotwire, ebookers, and Wotif, while its B2B segment supplies travel inventory and technology to airlines, banks, loyalty programs, and other travel sellers on a white-label and API basis. The company also owns the trivago metasearch business. Expedia earns revenue primarily through merchant and agency booking margins, advertising, and B2B distribution fees, and reported roughly 3.6 million lodging properties across its platforms, including about 2.4 million alternative-accommodation listings through Vrbo.
What does Trip.com Group (TCOM) do?
Trip.com Group Limited is a Cayman Islands holding company that runs the largest online travel platform in China and an expanding international one. It sells accommodation reservations, transportation ticketing (mostly air and rail), packaged tours and corporate travel management under four main brands: Ctrip for mainland China, Qunar for price-led domestic demand, Trip.com for international travelers, and Skyscanner for flight and hotel metasearch. Founded in 1999, the company listed on Nasdaq in 2003 and added a Hong Kong listing (HKEX: 9961) in 2021, and its head office is in Singapore. US investors buy the TCOM American Depositary Share rather than the underlying ordinary share, and parts of the China business sit inside variable interest entities (VIEs) that hold the telecom and travel licenses PRC law keeps out of foreign hands.
EXPE vs TCOM: how do they differ?
Both fit overlapping themes, but they are not interchangeable. The useful comparison is which set of drivers and risks you want exposure to.
- EXPE drivers: B2B travel-supply growth; Brand simplification and One Key loyalty.
- TCOM drivers: International and inbound travel; A forced reset of hotel economics in China.
Which fits which kind of investor
A faster-growing, richer-valued name usually swings harder, so it suits a longer horizon and a higher tolerance for volatility; a steadier, more cash-generative business suits a more conservative or income-minded investor. The honest test is which set of risks you could hold through a drawdown: Expedia's revenue is almost entirely dependent on travel volumes, so a global recession, geopolitical disruption, or renewed travel restrictions would hit gross bookings quickly. For TCOM, china regulatory exposure is the dominant risk and it is no longer theoretical: the SAMR decision of July 25, 2026 cost ~RMB5.3 billion (~US$781 million) and rewrote the company's hotel contracting terms, while a December 2025 Yunnan homestay industry association complaint that named Trip.com and a July 2026 draft amendment to China's e-commerce law point to continued scrutiny of platform pricing, algorithms and traffic rules.
EXPE or TCOM: which should you pick?
EXPE vs TCOM: the full fundamentals
EXPE. Expedia converts a very large gross-bookings base (~$119.6 billion in 2025) into roughly $14.7 billion of revenue, reflecting the take-rate economics of an online travel intermediary. Growth in the high single digits trails Booking Holdings, but profitability has been improving as the technology replatforming rolls off and B2B scales. Trailing valuation multiples move with travel sentiment and quarterly bookings, so investors typically weigh the single-digit top-line growth against the faster earnings-per-share growth that buybacks and margin expansion can produce.
TCOM. Two figures mislead if read quickly. Trip.com reports in Chinese renminbi, so a screener that drops the currency label shows trailing revenue near 64,800, which is RMB millions (~US$9.4 billion) and not dollars. The trailing price/earnings ratio near ~6.8x is similarly flattered, because FY2025 other income carried a ~RMB15.4 billion gain from selling a MakeMyTrip stake back to MakeMyTrip for ~US$3.0 billion plus ~RMB4.0 billion of fair value gains, none of which is operating profit; the forward multiple near ~12x is the closer read.
Headline figures (approximate, July 2026): EXPE shows revenue (fy2025) ~$14.7 billion (up ~8% year over year), revenue (ttm, as of q1 2026) ~$15.2 billion, gross bookings (fy2025) ~$119.6 billion (up ~8% year over year), net income (fy2025) ~$1.3 billion; TCOM shows revenue (q1 2026, quarter ended march 31) ~RMB16.2 billion (~US$2.4 billion), up ~17% year over year, revenue (trailing twelve months) ~RMB64.8 billion (~US$9.4 billion); FY2025 was ~RMB62.4 billion (~US$8.9 billion), profit (q1 2026) Net income ~RMB2.5 billion (~US$367 million) versus ~RMB4.3 billion a year earlier; adjusted EBITDA ~RMB4.8 billion (~US$701 million), cash and investments ~RMB104.0 billion (~US$15.1 billion) at March 31, 2026, against ~RMB30.8 billion of total debt at December 31, 2025.
The bottom line: EXPE vs TCOM
EXPE and TCOM are related but distinct: same themes, different businesses and risks. Neither wins in the abstract; the right pick is whichever thesis you actually believe, sized so you are not over-concentrated in one theme. Walnut can show your combined EXPE and TCOM exposure against your real portfolio. It is not an investment adviser.
Wondering how EXPE or TCOM fits the portfolio you already own? Walnut is an AI investing app that connects your brokerage read-only and answers questions like that about your actual holdings: overlap, concentration, and how each position tracks the S&P 500. Compare the best AI portfolio analyzers or see the best AI investing apps in 2026.
Investing in Expedia Group with AI
Connect the broker you already use and ask Walnut's AI how EXPE fits what you actually hold: whether you own it already through a fund, what it would do to your concentration, and how it has tracked the S&P 500. Read-only by default, and you approve anything before it reaches your broker.
FAQ
What is the difference between EXPE and TCOM?
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Expedia Group (NASDAQ: EXPE), headquartered in Seattle, is one of the world's largest online travel companies, connecting travelers with accommodations, flights, rental cars, cruises, and activities. Trip.com Group Limited is a Cayman Islands holding company that runs the largest online travel platform in China and an expanding international one. They show up together because they share investment themes, but they are different businesses, so the better fit depends on which thesis you are expressing.
Is EXPE or TCOM the better stock?
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Neither is universally better; they suit different views and risk levels. Walnut is informational, not investment advice. Compare what each does, the tie-breaker metrics above, and the risks, then decide which fits your thesis and what you already own.
Which is cheaper, EXPE or TCOM?
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On forward P/E (as of August 2026), EXPE trades at 12.87x and TCOM at 10.63x, so TCOM is the cheaper of the two on next year's expected earnings. A lower multiple is not automatically the better buy: a richer valuation can be justified by faster growth, and a lower one can reflect real risk. Weigh the multiple against how fast each business is compounding.
Should you own both EXPE and TCOM?
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Because they share themes, owning both concentrates you in that theme. That can be intentional (a focused bet) or accidental (less diversification than it looks). Walnut can show your combined exposure across both, and whether adding either over-concentrates you, before you buy.
What are the risks of EXPE vs TCOM?
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EXPE: Expedia's revenue is almost entirely dependent on travel volumes, so a global recession, geopolitical disruption, or renewed travel restrictions would hit gross bookings quickly. It competes against a larger and faster-growing Booking Holdings, which has generally led on room-night growth and margin, and against Airbnb in the alternative-accommodation category where brand loyalty is strong. A major structural threat is that AI-native travel assistants and Google's travel tools could answer and book trips without sending travelers to Expedia's sites, raising customer acquisition costs or disintermediating the platform entirely. The company also carries meaningful exposure to marketing spend on Google, foreign-currency swings, and execution risk from its ongoing technology and loyalty transitions. TCOM: China regulatory exposure is the dominant risk and it is no longer theoretical: the SAMR decision of July 25, 2026 cost ~RMB5.3 billion (~US$781 million) and rewrote the company's hotel contracting terms, while a December 2025 Yunnan homestay industry association complaint that named Trip.com and a July 2026 draft amendment to China's e-commerce law point to continued scrutiny of platform pricing, algorithms and traffic rules. Structurally, an ADS buyer owns equity in a Cayman Islands holding company and not in the PRC variable interest entities that hold licenses essential to parts of the business, so a PRC finding that those contractual arrangements fail to comply could impair the value of the listed security. Under the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act, audit reports from a firm the PCAOB cannot inspect for two consecutive years would trigger a US trading prohibition; the PCAOB restored access to mainland China and Hong Kong firms in December 2022 and Trip.com has not been named a Commission-Identified Issuer since, but the exposure returns if that access is withdrawn. Operationally, results track Chinese and Asian travel demand and are sensitive to currency, energy prices and geopolitics, and the company itself guided second-quarter 2026 revenue growth down to ~3% to 8%. On litigation, a securities fraud class action over the antitrust disclosures (De Wilde v. Trip.com Group Limited, No. 2:26-cv-01420, E.D.N.Y., filed March 11, 2026, covering purchasers from April 30, 2024 to January 13, 2026) was voluntarily dismissed by order entered May 26, 2026, so no such case is pending, though the penalty itself keeps private claims in China and the US a live possibility.
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Walnut is informational, not investment advice. This page is descriptive and not a recommendation to buy or sell EXPE or TCOM; figures are approximate and dated (as of August 2026). Verify current data before investing.