Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Look, maybe that pinching in the middle at the moment, Paul,
Speaker 2: is exactly what we might see reflected when you're all
Speaker 2: thinking about a vacation at the moment, where are you putting.
Speaker 3: Your bang for your buck? Is it about experiences?
Speaker 2: Are you still going for the ultry luxury holiday and
Speaker 2: hotel or are you trading down a little bit. We've
Speaker 2: got the perfect person to be asking this at the moment.
Speaker 2: Robin Harris is with us, the CFO of Trevago. Look,
Speaker 2: it is the number one global hotel search platform and
Speaker 2: many people, seventy one million in fact, Americans are meant
Speaker 2: to be hitting the road this Fourth of July weekend, Robin,
Speaker 2: according to Triple A, how many of them are still
Speaker 2: really spoiling themselves on a hotel or are they trading down?
Speaker 1: Hi? Great to be speaking to you. What we see
Speaker 1: on external data is that this year five percent more
Speaker 1: Americans are traveling on the fourth of July, and we
Speaker 1: look at Google there we also see higher travel demand.
Speaker 1: And our internal data shows that the top destinations this
Speaker 1: year are the same top destinations that we saw in
Speaker 1: twenty three. And however, the prices went up, sometimes significantly.
Speaker 1: So the top destinations are Number one is Las Vegas,
Speaker 1: Number two is a Mortle Beach, and the third one
Speaker 1: is New York. And prices in Las Vegas and in
Speaker 1: New York are up quite a lot so and therefore
Speaker 1: it makes a lot of sense to compare prices on Trivago.
Speaker 4: I can tell a lot of people going to the
Speaker 4: Jersey Shore as well, judging by the beach yesterday. Robin
Speaker 4: is globally speaking, is travel these days? Is it mostly
Speaker 4: within one's own country? Or where are we in terms
Speaker 4: of international travels?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so most of the Americans travel within America, so
Speaker 1: and so most of the travel and we also see
Speaker 1: this on other platforms internationally that the domestic travel is strongest.
Speaker 1: But of course you also have many Americans that go
Speaker 1: to Mexico, that go to Italy or to Spain or
Speaker 1: to Turkey also strong, but most of them are travel
Speaker 1: busin the US.
Speaker 2: How much have people been trying to navigate the inflationary
Speaker 2: pressure of Look, as someone who has kids, I started
Speaker 2: to use an Airbnb experience, or at least some sort
Speaker 2: of home that I was going to go and stay
Speaker 2: in rather than a hotel purely because I needed a microwave.
Speaker 2: I needed to be like doing milk, this, that and
Speaker 2: the other. I need to be cooking kids food that
Speaker 2: I didn't want to spend an absolute fortune on.
Speaker 3: But how much has that.
Speaker 2: Factored into what people are looking to and for from
Speaker 2: a hotel experience.
Speaker 3: How much are we starting to see some of the
Speaker 3: cleaning fees you see within an Airbnb fight back and
Speaker 3: people now wanting the hotel experience. What do you see.
Speaker 1: Rom So Tivago is pretty much focused on hotel, So
Speaker 1: we offer over five million hotels and other accommodations which
Speaker 1: I'm also apartments, so, but we are pretty much focused
Speaker 1: on hotel and so we see a huge opportunity even
Speaker 1: in the hotel segment, and we see that the demand
Speaker 1: is strong for people searching for hotels and going to hotels.
Speaker 3: Robin talk to us about business travel.
Speaker 4: Where are we in terms of maybe pre pandemic levels
Speaker 4: in terms of business travel seems to come back. I'm
Speaker 4: just not sure where we are.
Speaker 1: Oh so we are already back, I think. So when
Speaker 1: we look at the seasonality and when we look into
Speaker 1: the demand for this summer's it's high, so and it's
Speaker 1: compared to COVID it's I think even higher. So the
Speaker 1: demand at Selsy when you look into the market at Selsy.
Speaker 1: So this looks all where we stable and solid.
Speaker 2: What's interesting Roman is the US dollar has been doing
Speaker 2: mighty fine versus basically everything else of late. And I
Speaker 2: would have thought that you mentioned Turkey, you mentioned Europe, Spain,
Speaker 2: I know many going to Portugal for example, people looking
Speaker 2: at Japan finally because it seems to be so much
Speaker 2: more economical from an FXS perspective. Has that in any
Speaker 2: way changed the way in which a US traveler is
Speaker 2: looking and opportunities to go globally travel rather than keep
Speaker 2: it domestic.
Speaker 1: So we see that the arm that the Americans that
Speaker 1: they stay more in the US and go less abroad.
Speaker 1: So the domestic trouble has been increasing. And this is
Speaker 1: also a trend that we see that or we observe
Speaker 1: that that people go more for mid star hotels instead
Speaker 1: of high high class hotels.
Speaker 4: Robin, if I wanted to make a last minute decision
Speaker 4: and go over to Parish for the Olympics, can you
Speaker 4: get mer room? And how much do I have to
Speaker 4: pay for it?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: So this might be expensive? Yeah, of course we will.
Speaker 1: We will find a good offer for you. And it
Speaker 1: makes sense probably to go a little bit out of
Speaker 1: the top destinations now because it's what we see. Travel
Speaker 1: trends are that whenever there are sporting events or even concerts,
Speaker 1: big concerts, that prices stow up a lot. So therefore
Speaker 1: it might make sense to go a little bit outside.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was cheaper to basically fly over from America,
Speaker 2: take your family to Europe watch Swift there, yes, than
Speaker 2: to watch it in America. Exactly, Robin, I'm really interested
Speaker 2: in Travago in and of itself because you are bringing
Speaker 2: price transparency. There are so many ways in which I
Speaker 2: could buy a hotel, whether I'm going direct to the
Speaker 2: hotel's own website, whether I'm doing it via various agencies,
Speaker 2: and you're trying to honestly get rid of some of
Speaker 2: the arbitrage issues that we currently face and get us
Speaker 2: the best price. How much are we seeing a murky
Speaker 2: price point for hotels? How much clarity are we able
Speaker 2: to get that there's just one true price.
Speaker 1: So when you compare today with and pre COVID, you
Speaker 1: can see that there is more price disparity, and you
Speaker 1: can see that there are more different rates across the
Speaker 1: hotels are out there, so therefore it still makes a
Speaker 1: lot of sense to compare prices, and it makes even
Speaker 1: more sense than pre COVID so and I mean that's
Speaker 1: the market here. You see, there are different prices and
Speaker 1: that makes sense to compare it, and that's what we
Speaker 1: are doing.
Speaker 4: Robert. Are all the hotel chains notable, I mean even
Speaker 4: the high ends ones. Are they open to doing business
Speaker 4: with the Travagos of the world.
Speaker 1: Yes, we have. Most of the big global hotel brands
Speaker 1: are integrated and our partners and if you go to
Speaker 1: Trivago you can also see the direct prices from the
Speaker 1: big Koto chains.
Speaker 4: All right, Robin Harris, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 4: Robert Harris, Travago c FO, talk to us about that
Speaker 4: travel