Booking Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:BKNG) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Glenn Fogel: Hi Kevin. So, I’m very pleased that we’re continuing to advance while we talked about the overall — we’ll call it alternative accommodations is the way we define that area. We talk globally about our 11% growth being faster then the 9% for the overall company that 11% was a Booking.com number. But in terms of North America specifically are less reduced to the US which is the area where I think we all are more focused on. We have said many, many times I have seen many, many times that’s an area of focus for us. We know we’re under index. We know the areas we had to improve the product. And we talked in the last call, we called [indiscernible] for that too probably. About the things we’re doing to improve it and that is both on the supply side making sure we’re improving things so that people who own homes, people manage apartments, people who are in this space say, I’m sorry, but Booking.com, you’re not doing certain things that you need to do for me.

I’m glad that we are doing those things they will then be willing and are being to list their properties on our platform. That’s great. And on the other side as I talked about last time is the importance okay, we got the properties now. We’ve got to make sure people know about it and I talked last time again about awareness and then we need to bring that up to. This is not a thing you saw overnight. This is something that you day by day, step-by-step grind it out and that’s what we’re doing in all different areas and we’re seeing the progress. So, are we there? Yes? No, not even close to there yet. But the good thing is we’re making the progress and that’s all upside for us down the road. So we’re going to keep on plugging away at it and I think we’ll continue to experience good returns as we continue to invest in the area.

Kevin Kopelman: Great. Thank you.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Doug Anmuth with JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Doug Anmuth: Thanks for taking the questions. Can you talk about where you’re seeing the biggest impacts of connected trip? And how big of an impact do you think that’s happening in terms of your outsized growth in the quarter? And then just switching to mobile the 48% of room nights booked through the apps. Anything you can share in terms of better frequency and loyalty among those app users?

Glenn Fogel: So I’ll leave the second one what David wants to actually reveal in that area of specifics. I’m not sure if he does or doesn’t. Regarding the connected trip a couple of things on that. So let’s start off right at the start that, the Connect trip is not producing material numbers increases in our — what we’re doing right now. The good numbers that we’re showing right now are not because of a connected trip and it’s just too small to show that. Imagine we’re building it in orange — until every piece is in place. You’re not getting a lot of advantage from this arch. Right now build in the arch. So you see parts that are showing up but not the big effect. So for example really happy about one element which is you have to have a flight product.

And we’re doing 58% year-over-year growth in tickets and flights that’s greater – I mean that’s a really good number. It shows that we’re producing a good flight product, we’ll get that going. And then the other areas that we have to build out like things like the attractions, things like the right part gets to you from the hotel to the airport or from your home to the airport things like that. Building all those things out. And then of course, the glue payments. That’s very important to make sure the whole thing is working correctly. We’re able to give benefits value to both the traveler and enable our suppliers to have an opportunity to give types of benefits so they’ll win that deal. These are things we need payments to do and we’re making great progress and really happy to see that number up there they’re 48% in the growth from last year.

So all these elements are being worked on but that is not what’s producing the very good returns in Q2. The flip side that says, look at all the potential future we have down the road. That’s really encouraging to me. So I’m very happy where we are. I’m glad with the progress we’re making but it should not be misthought that this is the thing that’s produced Q2’s numbers. And David I don’t know if you want to talk about mobile app anything there in terms of repeat?

David Goulden: Yes. Thank you. So Doug, you’re going to ask the question?

Doug Anmuth: No, go ahead.