Booking Holdings Inc at Nasdaq Investor Conference Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Brian Nowak - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC - Analyst : Exactly. We covered that and so far, so good. All right, Ewout. Well, there's a lot to sort of talk about in the overall business and the travel industry. I know you've been with the company now for about nine months, but maybe -- let's just sort of start with the updated 8-K overnight and sort of what you announced there and we can sort of talk about like philosophy and how to think about the impact of that.

Question: Brian Nowak - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC - Analyst : Okay. That's good color. I know you -- since you've been in the role, you've talked a lot about fixed costs growing slower than revenue. And now this is sort of an example of that. So it sounds like in the 8-K, we're sort of talking $400 million to $450 million of run rate cost reductions. Just as we're sort of thinking through philosophically, the level of reinvestment of that as opposed to letting flow through, is there any way we can sort of think through how much of that is going to be reinvested in all the core and growth initiatives as opposed to flowing through to shareholders?

Question: Brian Nowak - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC - Analyst : Understood. Okay. Well, let's talk about the areas of investment in the core and some of the secondary sort of emerging areas. I think you're -- the disclosure you give on regional growth is really helpful nowadays. It's really interesting to me when we sort of look at what's happened with the business where Europe, your largest business, really accelerated nicely to high single-digit growth in the third quarter. Actually, it looks like it's even growing faster than rest of world, which we'll get to in a second. But that Europe business, which is so large, accelerating, how much of that is macro as opposed to micro execution? Is there anything that you would call out at a micro level that sort of gives you confidence, like, here's how we keep Europe growing at this clip off of this large base?

Question: Brian Nowak - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC - Analyst : Yeah, the infamous flywheel in Europe seems to be spinning away. Now in the US, it's a little bit of the opposite, it looks like, at least based on your disclosure where it's sort of the US looks like it's sort of growing, call it, 3% to 4%, slower than where it had been in sort of the high single digits before that. What -- how do you think about where you want to execute in the US to sort of reaccelerate that and maybe start to see some of the type of growth you're seeing in Europe and the US? What are sort of the executional areas?

Question: Brian Nowak - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC - Analyst : Macro. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. DECEMBER 11, 2024 / 9:00AM, BKNG.OQ - Booking Holdings Inc at Nasdaq Investor Conference

Question: Brian Nowak - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC - Analyst : Got it. Certainly, there's a lot of discussion on that side of the pond about making America great. So we will see. Now the -- in the US, I think it's interesting because over the course of the last 10 years, you've had a lot of different marketing and go-to-market strategies in the US. You've attacked with search. You've used TV marketing. You've used social marketing, YouTube marketing, discounting, and merchandising. As you sort of think about which of those strategies has been most effective to continue to try to grow, anywhere you're sort of more or less excited to press more on next year in the US of those?

Question: Brian Nowak - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC - Analyst : Yeah. And in the US on the alternatives, the current market leader has a lot of inventory that is from individual hosts, individual owners as opposed to the groups or the property managers. So as you sort of think about the largest area you want to press into inventory and alternatives, is it going after the individuals in the US? Is it sort of going after the property managers? How do you sort of solve that supply challenge? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. DECEMBER 11, 2024 / 9:00AM, BKNG.OQ - Booking Holdings Inc at Nasdaq Investor Conference

Question: Brian Nowak - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC - Analyst : Okay. Great. Now it's been very impressive growth. You've been globally adding more room nights than that larger player. I think it's 9 of the last 12 quarters or so.

Question: Brian Nowak - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC - Analyst : 13 out of the last 14, thank you for correcting me. So very impressive growth. Okay, let's round up the globe and talk about Asia. I thought it was really interesting on the last conference call where you talked more about Asia than I think you historically have, at least, perception. So maybe talk to us about how you think about the Asia opportunity. And what are the biggest areas of incremental investment? Or sort of how do you think about driving that business to faster growth in '25 and '26?

Question: Brian Nowak - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC - Analyst : Got it. And is it ex-China or with China when you're sort of thinking about the Asia opportunity?

Question: Brian Nowak - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC - Analyst : Okay. Let's talk about some of the ancillary opportunities you mentioned early on when we were sort of talking about areas of investment. I thought you had a really interesting list: rental car, flights. You mentioned rideshare. I'll get there in a second and attractions. So -- maybe let's talk about flights. Areas of success you've had with flights and how do you sort of think about areas of investment to continue to keep the flights business and the flight attach going with your hotel bookers?

Question: Brian Nowak - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC - Analyst : Got it. And is it still the situation where flights is sort of the milk and the grocery store where people book their flight first? And then are you able to take those flight bookers, retarget them, and convert them into hotels? Have you had some success with that and bringing new people on with flights and things?

Question: Brian Nowak - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC - Analyst : When you and the management team sort of look at your dashboard of KPIs that you're evaluating the success or struggles, what do you look at? Do you look at, we acquire a customer, get the transaction and then revenue per transaction, revenue per customer. So what are the key KPIs that you look at internally to sort of gauge how all the initiatives are going?

Question: Brian Nowak - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC - Analyst : It's comprehensive. It's very helpful. Earlier, you mentioned rideshare as one of the areas. How do you think about bookings position and rideshare offering?

Question: Brian Nowak - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC - Analyst : Got it. Okay. It's been 26 minutes. We haven't even said the words Gen AI, but it's time. So the Gen AI travel debate has been sort of one of the ones that has ebbed and flowed a lot over the last two years. I think there's a lot of debate about how to think about the OTA's positioning in a long-term world where you could very well have next-generation, large language model enabled travel agents. Alphabet showed a next-generation travel agent in May. We've -- OpenAI as even showed next-generation travel search, et cetera. So how does Booking Holdings think about how the world kind of shakes out of where the consumer funnel will -- how the consumer funnel will change or how consumer behavior could change for these new tools?

Question: Brian Nowak - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC - Analyst : Penny.

Question: Brian Nowak - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC - Analyst : All right. Great. Well, we are against the flashing red. Ewout, thank you very much for taking the time. It was productive.