After several years of hiatus, travel is back! Despite inflation driving the cost of vacations sky-high (quite literally, the cost of airfare in the U.S. was far outpacing the rate of inflation throughout 2022), households are planning on traveling more in 2023. According to data from the U.S. travel Association, travel spending surpassed what was spent in 2019 and is showing few signs of cooling down.

This is more than "revenge travel," or consumers making up for lost time during lockdowns. Speaking generally, younger generations highly value seeing new places. And there is a growing middle class in developing countries, and travel spending is rising among this demographic, too. There's lots to like about making an investment in travel for the long haul, which means it pays to be well acquainted with Airbnb (NASDAQ: ABNB) and Booking Holdings (NASDAQ: BKNG) -- two top online travel marketplaces. Which is the better buy now?  

Airbnb's meteoric rise has been impressive. Despite its founding in just 2008, it commands a massive market cap valuing the business at $68 billion as of this writing. Booking, founded back in 1997 during the dot-com era (at the time it was still called Priceline), has a market cap value of $102 billion.

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Source Fool.com