(Bloomberg) -- Three months ago, travel companies warned that the great post-pandemic boom in consumer travel was losing steam.

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Over the past week, three of some of the largest online reservation companies — Airbnb Inc., Booking Holdings Inc. and Expedia Group Inc. — painted a less dramatic picture: They all issued strong outlooks that suggested growth isn’t slowing as fast as expected.

Airbnb said Thursday it expects an acceleration on the key metric of nights and experiences booked, with the growth rate expected to exceed the 8.5% achieved in the third quarter. Wall Street had projected a 7.7% gain. Expedia, which also reported results on Thursday, said it was raising its full-year gross bookings growth guidance to 5% from 4%.

Expedia was up 4.8% in after-hours trading. Airbnb shares fell 3.5% after initially rising when the company’s results were first announced. Just a week earlier, Booking, the parent to brands like Kayak and Priceline, offered surprisingly optimistic guidance, sending its own shares soaring.

Taken together, the companies’ forecasts offer some reasons for optimism as policymakers and investors are still trying to gauge the strength of the US economy. They challenge a narrative established by online travel companies, airlines and resorts last quarter that an across-the-board travel slowdown was coming.

“Building on robust momentum in September, we are off to a great start” in the fourth quarter, Airbnb said Thursday in a letter to shareholders, citing “strong demand trends” across core and expansion markets.

Airbnb’s third-quarter nights booked and adjusted earnings beat expectations. The San Francisco-based firm said it saw “slight acceleration” in nights booked in the EMEA region, buoyed by the summer Olympics in Paris.

Latin America and the Asia Pacific region continued to drive growth with double-digit bookings gains and record increases in active listings. In particular, the company said it was “encouraged by the recovery of the outbound China business” even though progress has been gradual.

In North America, where there were signs over the summer of slowing demand, Airbnb said bookings growth managed to improve during the third quarter after a slower start. Domestic travel continues to account for the vast majority of reservations in the region, it said, with non-urban destinations and larger group travel growing faster than ever.