Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: All right, and we're also keeping an eye on Booking
Speaker 2: Holdings today reported earnings, and the soap is up pre
Speaker 2: market after it posted a strong fourth quarter. It did, however,
Speaker 2: forecast a week or start to twenty twenty five due
Speaker 2: to currency had when certainly something that we've been hearing
Speaker 2: a lot of this earning season. Let's break it down
Speaker 2: now with Glenn Fogel. He is the CEO of Booking Holdings.
Speaker 2: Great to have you back with us. Glenn. Let's start
Speaker 2: with the broad picture here, because you mentioned on the
Speaker 2: earnings call that you're seeing healthy demand for leisure travel
Speaker 2: in specifics, but I'm wondering if you could break it
Speaker 2: down in terms of where people are actually traveling, which
Speaker 2: regions are really showing the most strength right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, thank you for having me.
Speaker 4: We talked about last night what a wonderful fourth quarter
Speaker 4: we had, and we did point out actually the strength
Speaker 4: was across the board globally, and we're an extremely global
Speaker 4: company and we were really excited to see that.
Speaker 1: All parts of the world are actually increasing in travel.
Speaker 1: So there's no area that I point out more one
Speaker 1: than the other.
Speaker 3: I mean, we did break down a little bit seeing
Speaker 3: in the fourth quarter.
Speaker 1: You know, our slowest growing area was actually still rather fast,
Speaker 1: which was the US, which is a double digit number,
Speaker 1: ten percent increase. The fastest area was a thing we
Speaker 1: call the rest of world, which is what's going twenty percent,
Speaker 1: and so what's rest of world will The other two
Speaker 1: areas besides rest of world and US are Asia which
Speaker 1: was a mid teen growth rate, in Europe which was
Speaker 1: a low double digit growth rate.
Speaker 3: So all across the board, wonderful numbers.
Speaker 1: Greatly to come in and give our shareholders a nice
Speaker 1: little earnings.
Speaker 5: Discussion here in the US Glen, A lot of people
Speaker 5: are worried about the consumer picture and whether inflation or
Speaker 5: other forces are going to bite more into consumer wallets.
Speaker 5: What evidence do you have that you can continue to
Speaker 5: see strength from the consumer going into the travel categories
Speaker 5: more often into this year with concerns about where inflation
Speaker 5: is headed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know, we've been dealing with this for
Speaker 1: a number of years now, where coming out of the pandemic,
Speaker 1: prices were very high for travel and people were getting
Speaker 1: a bit of sticker shot, but they wanted to travel,
Speaker 1: and those numbers coming out of pandemic were fantastic. Yes,
Speaker 1: today people will still say, hey, seems expensive.
Speaker 3: But people want travel, they want to go and.
Speaker 1: See the world, So sometimes what they'll do is they'll
Speaker 1: sacrifice something else instead. I'm not that concerned about people
Speaker 1: saying I'm not going to travel because the prices are
Speaker 1: too high. In fact, our numbers and we talked about
Speaker 1: last night, we're very positive about how travel's going right now.
Speaker 6: I went with my wife to Singapore last month and
Speaker 6: we used chat GPT quite a bit to help us
Speaker 6: find and schedule places to visit. How are your customers
Speaker 6: going to be using artificial intelligence on your platforms?
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's one of the most exciting things right now.
Speaker 1: Are these new types of technologies like JTVT you know,
Speaker 1: which is operated by open ai, and you may have
Speaker 1: heard we made an announce it one of the founding
Speaker 1: partners with open Ai in their new thing called Operator,
Speaker 1: which is another way to use a large language model
Speaker 1: and be able to come up with ways to go
Speaker 1: and travel. We have our own things in our own site.
Speaker 1: We have a thing at booking dot com that it's
Speaker 1: called our Ai Trip Planner, and over a price line,
Speaker 1: we have a thing called Penny which is also another
Speaker 1: similar type large language model that helps people discover and
Speaker 1: then be able to book. It's absolutely crucial that we
Speaker 1: continue to work on developing these new technologies so that
Speaker 1: as people want to change over time from the way
Speaker 1: they used to plan, discover, and book, that we're where
Speaker 1: the customer wants to be.
Speaker 3: I'm very positive on how we're doing this.
Speaker 1: And one of the great things is a critical thing
Speaker 1: is Data is the biggest travel player in the world.
Speaker 3: World.
Speaker 1: We have such an amount of resources in terms of
Speaker 1: knowledge and that coach of the data is a tremendous
Speaker 1: number of AI experts. We have all things that we
Speaker 1: can put together and make sure you, as a traveler,
Speaker 1: have the best way to come up with what is
Speaker 1: the highest value and where you.
Speaker 3: Want to go.
Speaker 2: Well, Glenn, let's build on that. Because I didn't go
Speaker 2: to Singapore, but I went to New Orleans with my
Speaker 2: husband and we all see awesome. It was a lot
Speaker 2: of fun. We also use chat GBT to find a
Speaker 2: lot of recommendations. And my question for you is, you
Speaker 2: are developing these tools, but how do you compete because
Speaker 2: it feels like people are kind of developing the muscle
Speaker 2: memory of just asking chat GBT things.
Speaker 1: So it's interesting about that where yes, some people are
Speaker 1: exploring CHATTBT and such and we are working with them, etc.
Speaker 3: But it's still a very small number.
Speaker 1: And our job is to make sure that people when
Speaker 1: they're booking, don't forget We get paid when people book
Speaker 1: and that is for them to be using all of
Speaker 1: our systems and services. And one of the critical things
Speaker 1: for a consumer is trust. And sure you may be
Speaker 1: using chat TOBT or maybe using Google or Bang or
Speaker 1: any way to learn and discover etc. In the day,
Speaker 1: though you want to have something that's going to be
Speaker 1: a one stop shot. They've put together what are truly
Speaker 1: the best value for you, and god forbid anything goes wrong,
Speaker 1: you want somebody to be able to fix it right away.
Speaker 3: That's really what we're.
Speaker 1: Doing, and AI is a great way for us to
Speaker 1: bring it all together in a much better, seamless frictionalist
Speaker 1: way that enables you to feel more comfortable and more
Speaker 1: confident that you're going with someone that's going to give
Speaker 1: you the most value. And look at our numbers right now,
Speaker 1: if they're.
Speaker 5: Great, I'm also curious here about how it's going to
Speaker 5: impact your bottom line at the end of the day.
Speaker 5: You have a lot of businesses here where obviously internet
Speaker 5: is first point of contact. But what does AI mean
Speaker 5: in terms of your workforce moving forward, your need to
Speaker 5: employ more people in order to get this information to customers.
Speaker 5: Do you think it's going to make it differ?
Speaker 1: Well, certainly, we're looking for efficiencies and one of the areas,
Speaker 1: for example, is customer service, and we're seeing benefits already.
Speaker 1: We're a customer service agent at the end of the
Speaker 1: conversation with a customer has to put together a summary.
Speaker 1: Well with now with AI, that summary can be done automatically,
Speaker 1: giving more time to the customer service person to actually
Speaker 1: spend time with the customer.
Speaker 3: But then it goes beyond that and someday, someday we're
Speaker 3: going to be.
Speaker 1: Able to do and we're seeing some initial things where
Speaker 1: you don't need as a customer to deal with an agent.
Speaker 1: You can do it all with what is essentially a
Speaker 1: generitive AI agent that solving the problem right there, That
Speaker 1: of course enables us to spend our money somewhere else
Speaker 1: in that may be getting more AI specialists to help
Speaker 1: build better products and services. I agree they're going to
Speaker 1: be changes in terms of where the jobs are because general,
Speaker 1: AI is going to be either a supplement or replacement
Speaker 1: for certain things that are currently done completely by humans.
Speaker 1: But over time, I'm not concerned about there not being
Speaker 1: enough employment. I don't see that ever being an issue.
Speaker 3: Glenn.
Speaker 6: Great to get your thoughts on this changing industry at
Speaker 6: Booking Holdings Glenn Fogel there on the CEO