Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. We don't
Speaker 1: have to tell you if you've been in an airport
Speaker 1: recently about the nightmare that is flying right now, and
Speaker 1: a big part of that has to do with the
Speaker 1: way that demand has really snapped back following a couple
Speaker 1: of years of people sitting on the sidelines. We've got
Speaker 1: a great voice on where people are going, where they're flying,
Speaker 1: what we can see when it comes to inflation and
Speaker 1: the impact that that's having on travel. We have with
Speaker 1: us Brett Keller, the CEO of price Line. It's part
Speaker 1: of the publicly traded booking holdings company. Brett. Great to
Speaker 1: have you with us. How are you. I'm doing well,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thanks for having me on today. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: really good to have you with us. Okay, So we
Speaker 1: got a nice little chunk of time with you. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk a lot about trends and where people
Speaker 1: are going. But first of all, I want to hear
Speaker 1: about Labor Day because we got the three day weekend
Speaker 1: coming up. What are you seeing on your platform in
Speaker 1: terms of demand for traveling are people getting out there still. Yeah,
Speaker 1: obviously we're coming off of a very strong summer travel
Speaker 1: period and we had record you know, demand coming through
Speaker 1: our platform and through obviously many of the other travel
Speaker 1: platforms in the marketplace. After a pretty much a non
Speaker 1: travel a little bit of demand coming back last year,
Speaker 1: this year was folks were really getting back traveling again.
Speaker 1: So as we're coming out of the summer, you know,
Speaker 1: school starting up again, Labor Day still looks very good
Speaker 1: in terms of consumer demand, very healthy. People are still
Speaker 1: continuing to travel despite you know, really what has been
Speaker 1: a very difficult i think financial period here over the
Speaker 1: last couple of months with gas prices, etcetera. We are
Speaker 1: seeing very healthy patterns for not only Labor Day, but
Speaker 1: really into the fall as well, as people are really
Speaker 1: starting to ramp up their searches and their plans for
Speaker 1: for holiday travel as well. Right, you mentioned gas prices,
Speaker 1: and let's put this conversation in the context of what
Speaker 1: we're seeing in the broader economy right now. Inflation, of course,
Speaker 1: is on everyone's mind, and the big question we've been
Speaker 1: asking over the past several months is when does that
Speaker 1: lead to demand destruction? But it sounds like from what
Speaker 1: you're saying, you haven't really seen that in your data yet.
Speaker 1: We haven't yet. And there's two I think facts we
Speaker 1: can point to here. One is that hotel demand through
Speaker 1: the month of July, you know, public data show that
Speaker 1: that was very healthy, and I think what we're seeing
Speaker 1: in August continues to be healthy. You know, the drive
Speaker 1: market is a big market in the US, and gas
Speaker 1: prices certainly should play a role in that. I think
Speaker 1: with gas prices coming down a bit over the last
Speaker 1: few weeks, that's certainly going to help Labor Day. What
Speaker 1: hasn't really moved down yet is jet fuel prices. Those
Speaker 1: are still up over where they were last year. And
Speaker 1: while flight prices aren't up quite that high, they are
Speaker 1: still up right there, up versus where they were. Because
Speaker 1: because we've seen a decline in the price of oil,
Speaker 1: and as a result, we've seen a decline in the
Speaker 1: price of regular gas that we used to fill up
Speaker 1: our cars. Do we anticipate that we're also going to
Speaker 1: see some sort of decline in the price of jet
Speaker 1: fuel and then in turn airline tickets to Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: stepped down a little bit. You know, if you look
Speaker 1: back four or five weeks ago jet fuel was up
Speaker 1: over ad percent, So it's come down you know, ten
Speaker 1: to fift here in the past few weeks, but it
Speaker 1: does seem to drag and fall behind its speed of return, uh,
Speaker 1: compared to you know, gas prices. The consumer they're paying
Speaker 1: at the pump. So I think we've got a little
Speaker 1: bit of a weight to go there if even if
Speaker 1: pump prices continued to drop in the airspace. And so
Speaker 1: I want to talk about how this compares to what
Speaker 1: we have seen but also pre pandemic levels, sort of
Speaker 1: the demand that you're seeing for flights and hotels, for searches,
Speaker 1: what does it look like. Well, when you look ahead
Speaker 1: at fall travel, U flight searches are significantly on the
Speaker 1: price line platform versus last year. We're seeing flight searches
Speaker 1: over a versus last year for fall travel, and we're
Speaker 1: seeing a hotel switches up not quite that much. But
Speaker 1: now not all of those consumers are ready to pull
Speaker 1: the trigger yet, right they're dealing with sticker shock again
Speaker 1: as they move into fall. But that does indicate a
Speaker 1: very very high demand to travel, a demand for travel,
Speaker 1: and so consumers are very active in the market right now,
Speaker 1: shopping and looking for value that they can pull the
Speaker 1: trigger on. And I think we're going to see a
Speaker 1: very healthy labor day. And you know, we can't predict
Speaker 1: the future. We don't know what's going to happen with
Speaker 1: the economic cycles here, but things are I think shaping
Speaker 1: up in a good place for the fall as well.
Speaker 1: Hey what about rental cars right now? They're offered on
Speaker 1: the price line platform. And I was shocked to find
Speaker 1: that my brother rented a van to carry his three
Speaker 1: kids and his whole family a few weeks ago. They
Speaker 1: did it for ten days and it was like thirty
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars bread just to rent this van. What
Speaker 1: is going on when it comes to rent our cars?
Speaker 1: Rental cars are in a very interesting uh position right now.
Speaker 1: You know, coming out of the start of the pandemic,
Speaker 1: there was a couple of things putting pressure on the
Speaker 1: car industry. First of all, they had had a number
Speaker 1: of storms throughout two thousand nineteen that depleted quite a
Speaker 1: bit of their inventory. And as they entered into the pandemic,
Speaker 1: obviously many of the auto manufacturers had supply chain issues
Speaker 1: and stopped producing cars, and so that put further pressure
Speaker 1: on their fleets. And so as they downsized their fleet significantly.
Speaker 1: That caused prices to go up. It really just skyrocket.
Speaker 1: Last year prices were up almost sev versus two thousand nineteen.
Speaker 1: They've come down a little bit, believe it in hut
Speaker 1: versus last year, but they're still up six. So consumers
Speaker 1: are paying significantly more to rent a car today than
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago. And then you add high
Speaker 1: gas prices on that. That really puts a dent in
Speaker 1: the consumer's wallet. But with that said, they are selling
Speaker 1: out in a lot of markets, so consumers are still
Speaker 1: the higher prices. It's amazing that demand certainly is still there.
Speaker 1: I mean, we really had no other choice. I guess
Speaker 1: you could say, when we're all getting together earlier this year, Hey, Brett,
Speaker 1: stick around because we're gonna do some news and we're
Speaker 1: gonna come back and we're gonna chat more about all
Speaker 1: things happening on the price Line platform and more trends,
Speaker 1: including where everybody is traveling to this fall and what
Speaker 1: are they gonna be the hot destinations next year. Brett
Speaker 1: Keller is CEO of price Line. Joining us on zoom
Speaker 1: from Norwalk, Connecticut. You're listening to Bloomberg Radio. Let's get
Speaker 1: right back to Brett Keller, CEO of Price Line. He
Speaker 1: joins us on zoom from Norwalk, Connecticut. All right, Brett,
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, Katie needs a vacation. She's got
Speaker 1: plenty of days left. I'm looking at her calendar right here,
Speaker 1: which we can do at Bloomberg, which is fun, and
Speaker 1: she has a lot of vacation days left, Katie that
Speaker 1: you gotta burn by the end of the year. I've
Speaker 1: got some vacation days. I've got to burn by the
Speaker 1: end of the year. Brett. Where are people going? Where
Speaker 1: are the hot places to fly? Right now? Alright? That
Speaker 1: is the question we need to answer through here. We
Speaker 1: need to burn some vacations. So if you know, you
Speaker 1: look at basically any day of the year, the top
Speaker 1: destinations are typically the entertainment venue. So that's going to be,
Speaker 1: you know, topping the charts almost always is going to
Speaker 1: be Las Vegas, Orlando, New York. But as we started
Speaker 1: to look at where consumers are searching as we move
Speaker 1: into the fall, let me share a couple of destinations
Speaker 1: for you. Obviously, Puerto Rico, you know, San Juan tops
Speaker 1: our charts in terms of the most search and a
Speaker 1: domestic destination at least within or close to the borders
Speaker 1: of the US. Honolulu ranks number two in that list. Miami,
Speaker 1: of course, always a hot spot, is where people are
Speaker 1: flocking here in the next couple of months. Where we
Speaker 1: are really seeing though searches pick up at a very
Speaker 1: very high paid it's almost ten times where we were
Speaker 1: last year, are of course, international destinations. Things were not
Speaker 1: completely shut down last year, but really took travel. You
Speaker 1: had to test go through a number of hoops to
Speaker 1: actually get to your destinations. So this year that window
Speaker 1: has opened back up and we're seeing people really both
Speaker 1: travel two and search for international destinations. And the top
Speaker 1: ones on our list at least for the fall so
Speaker 1: far include destinations like Munich, so people are heading to
Speaker 1: October Fest that is back on the map again. People
Speaker 1: are going to destinations like Dublin and London. Other top
Speaker 1: destinations include Amsterdam, Paris, Lisbon. Many of the hot spots
Speaker 1: that used to be big travel destinations for US consumers
Speaker 1: are now back in boge again. Okay, Brett, so I
Speaker 1: actually have vacation days put in for the first week
Speaker 1: of or rather the second week of October. It's our
Speaker 1: five year wedding anniversary. We haven't anything. We haven't booked anything.
Speaker 1: If I'm trying to book international right now, is it
Speaker 1: just is it a disaster? Should I not even try? Well,
Speaker 1: it was a rough summer right The major airports overseas
Speaker 1: really couldn't handle the pressure in the crowds, and so
Speaker 1: you heard stories of lines that were forward five hours
Speaker 1: in length, many people missing flights and rebooking. I think
Speaker 1: we're past that type of pain when it comes to
Speaker 1: international travel. We're certainly not dealing with many of the
Speaker 1: testing protocols and the issues that were associated with covies.
Speaker 1: So I think from that perspective, we're in good shape.
Speaker 1: From the airport and the congestion perspective, it will still
Speaker 1: be very busy because many of the Europeans are now
Speaker 1: of course moving around and across countries as well. But
Speaker 1: things have improved and many of the airports have put
Speaker 1: limits in place in terms of how many flights have
Speaker 1: allowed to move through their airports. So I think you'll
Speaker 1: find that it's tolerable enough that you will want to
Speaker 1: travel to some of these destinations. It's it's it's you know,
Speaker 1: these are the kinds of things that if you keep
Speaker 1: passing up in life, you're just not going to enjoy
Speaker 1: some of the best travel that the world has to offer.
Speaker 1: That's a good point. I always think about Warren Miller
Speaker 1: and the Warren Miller films. If you don't do it
Speaker 1: this year, you're gonna be one year older when you
Speaker 1: do Brett. Before we go, they're always rumors about the
Speaker 1: best time to buy tickets, the cheapest days to buy tickets,
Speaker 1: and the airlines have it pretty pretty figured out in
Speaker 1: terms of from an analytics perspective, you know how to
Speaker 1: get the most money from us. Given that we think
Speaker 1: prices for fuel will go down as a result of
Speaker 1: lower oil prices, should we still be booking our holiday
Speaker 1: travel really earlier? Should we wait for prices to fall. Well, one,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that I would ever bet on oil
Speaker 1: prices falling. They're just as likely to go back up
Speaker 1: in the future. But when we look back in history,
Speaker 1: and this is true virtually every year, if you're booking
Speaker 1: holiday airfare, those are for the major holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas,
Speaker 1: end of year, etcetera. You need to book early. You
Speaker 1: need to be booking in this September October time frame.
Speaker 1: If you're talking about other types of fall travel, you
Speaker 1: really need to book at least two weeks in advance
Speaker 1: and do not wait until the last week to book
Speaker 1: your flight. You will absolutely pay up. And it is
Speaker 1: true if you fly out on a Tuesday, you will
Speaker 1: save an average of at least eight percent on your ticket.
Speaker 1: So book in advance. There are certain days a week
Speaker 1: that will play to your favor, and on price Line
Speaker 1: you can do things like mix and match airlines, go
Speaker 1: out on one airline, come back on another. That typically
Speaker 1: can lead to savings of you know, almost ten percent
Speaker 1: if you're careful and how how you plan, so those
Speaker 1: types of changes can take off your trip if you're
Speaker 1: careful and how you plan. But who wants to plan
Speaker 1: a Tuesday. I don't know, that's the question exactly, that's right.
Speaker 1: I guess that's why it is so much cheaper. Bret Keller,
Speaker 1: CEO of price Line, Brett, thanks for taking some time
Speaker 1: and sticking with us for a little extra time this afternoon.
Speaker 1: It was great to get a good chunk of minutes
Speaker 1: with you.