Airbnb (ABNB) looks to be preparing for a summer travel explosion.

The company has increased its employee headcount by 15% in the past month, according to new data from Thinknum and LinkedIn.

"Airbnb has managed to come out strong against pandemic waves and international crises," Thinknum wrote in a note.

Airbnb may be right in staffing up ahead of the peak travel period.

Alphabet said on its earnings call this week that search queries on Google for categories like beaches and islands surged 27% in the first quarter compared to 2019 while vacation rental queries also spiked 37%. Global online searches for passports also jumped 80% and inquiries for travel insurance doubled.

The World Travel & Tourism Council, meanwhile, recently said the U.S. travel and tourism industry could reach $2 trillion in U.S. GDP contribution this year. If achieved, that would surpass pre-pandemic levels by 6.2%.

Accordingly, investors are positioning for strong earnings from travel companies later this year.

Shares of hotel giants Marriott (MAR) and Hilton (HLT) are trading near record highs as well, and major airlines such as Delta (DAL) and United Airlines (UAL) struck upbeat tones in their second quarter financial outlooks this month.

"I think what we have is a case of two years of people not being able to travel the way they wanted to travel," Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel said on Yahoo Finance Live. "At the same time, they built up their savings. At the same time, it's not easy to buy a lot of things you'd like because of supply chains. So let's say you want to buy a new car. Well, not so easy getting new cars sometimes right now. Let's go and travel."

Brian Sozzi, a former Wall Street analyst, is an editor-at-large and anchor at Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn.

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