Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2: Wall Street, weighing in on a strong quarter for Bookings.
Speaker 2: Holdings City says that results show the outlook with a
Speaker 2: broad strength. Evercore ISI says core trends remain solid despite
Speaker 2: slightly softer profit guidance. The company also announcing eight twenty
Speaker 2: five for one stock split. Let's get more details now
Speaker 2: from the company CEO Glenn Fogel, who joins the program. Glenn,
Speaker 2: great to see you, and look, the analysts said it there.
Speaker 2: It was a strong earning, So maybe we need to
Speaker 2: talk about the elephant in the room. Shares are down
Speaker 2: eight percent. I can only imagine it's AI anxiety that
Speaker 2: seems to continue to be souring a lot of companies
Speaker 2: so far in the market these past couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: What is your.
Speaker 2: Response to concerns that AI is going to disrupt booking?
Speaker 3: Well, first, thanks for having me, and I got to echo.
Speaker 1: What you said. I mean last night coming out with
Speaker 1: the numbers that we put out were just stellar.
Speaker 3: The whole year has been even though the world's been
Speaker 3: volatile and we've had all these economic issues, we still
Speaker 3: power through accelerating each quarter and being able to come
Speaker 3: in almost adjusted, if it's up almost ten billion dollars,
Speaker 3: returning over eight of it to a billion to the shareholders.
Speaker 3: This is just fantastic going well. And it's interesting too.
Speaker 3: It's not like the world changed anything from what we
Speaker 3: said last night that would cause people to be more
Speaker 3: concerned about AI affecting our business.
Speaker 1: Effect.
Speaker 3: AI is a positive for our business. That's what's so interesting.
Speaker 3: And I'm not sure anything I said that would have
Speaker 3: caused anybody to think anything different, But clearly it's going
Speaker 3: to take some time for this all to shake out
Speaker 3: and people see the benefits that we are producing through AI.
Speaker 2: Well, let's get to it, because the criticism maybe goes.
Speaker 2: I can open up my Gemini or chat Ept or
Speaker 2: whatever and have it booked for me at some point.
Speaker 2: You know, my entire trip a hotel, of flight and cars.
Speaker 2: So why would I need booking holdings in any of
Speaker 2: the companies under your umbrella? Glenn? What would be your
Speaker 2: rep to that?
Speaker 3: Well, we don't have the time to go through all
Speaker 3: the reasons, and there are a lot why that is
Speaker 3: not the way the world is going to be. But
Speaker 3: I will say that here's an example of a path
Speaker 3: in the past where people have tried that. Look at Google,
Speaker 3: enormous company, very big, at the top of the travel funnel,
Speaker 3: peole going to Google first trying to figure out what
Speaker 3: they wanted, and Google try.
Speaker 1: They actually did do this thing called book on Google, and.
Speaker 3: Then they pulled back from that want because this is
Speaker 3: a lot more complex than one would think. I mean,
Speaker 3: the supplier proposition that we deal with. We deal with
Speaker 3: over four million properties globally, and it's not all they
Speaker 3: just put in the prices and the availability of This
Speaker 3: is some of the connectivity you got to work with
Speaker 3: day by day, and it's working with these managers of
Speaker 3: these properties in terms of what should they be putting
Speaker 3: out in terms of sales, in terms of geo prices,
Speaker 3: mobile prices.
Speaker 1: We have our loyalty program genius.
Speaker 3: I mean, we talked last night about about mid sixty
Speaker 3: percent of the people are coming to us direct and
Speaker 3: when we have those AI tools, we're making even better
Speaker 3: so you can do your entire trip. It's not just
Speaker 3: the hotel, it's the flight, it's the ground, transport data,
Speaker 3: and it's attractions. What you do putting that all together,
Speaker 3: stitching together with AI produces a much better thing.
Speaker 1: And then the customer service and the trust that will
Speaker 1: acts be done right. And that's really complicated stuff that
Speaker 1: we do so well.
Speaker 3: And by the way, you tell me Gemini or Chat
Speaker 3: TVT you're going to do this will have fun with
Speaker 3: the merchant of record issues and regulations. I mean, if
Speaker 3: you go to Europe, all the issues you have to
Speaker 3: deal with in terms of making sure.
Speaker 1: You're doing this within the regulatory framework.
Speaker 4: I do not believe that the tech companies, and this
Speaker 4: is proved by Google when they see how difficult is
Speaker 4: how much you need boots on the ground to say,
Speaker 4: you know, we can make a lot more money on advertising,
Speaker 4: which is what Google does.
Speaker 1: And together we need a lot of money.
Speaker 3: Now we're doing it with CHATGBT where we are one
Speaker 3: of the first people in we're putting in advertisements at
Speaker 3: the bottom of the results that come out of JIGBT.
Speaker 1: Perhaps they will move into.
Speaker 3: More a Google way in terms of using an auction
Speaker 3: method for advertising, which go to be wonderful for us
Speaker 3: and good for them.
Speaker 1: We'll see what happens.
Speaker 3: By the idea that people are going to be going
Speaker 3: to a large language model and doing their booking and
Speaker 3: it's all going to work fine and no problems.
Speaker 1: I do not believe that's the way the world's going
Speaker 1: to work.
Speaker 2: Glenn. I got to say, I really do feel for you.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a lot of CEOs in your position
Speaker 2: that are having to deal with this that a market
Speaker 2: that's just like throwing everything out with the bathwater because
Speaker 2: they don't know how things are going to look. I'm
Speaker 2: curious from your end, what has it been like to onboard,
Speaker 2: to hire to find AI talent that can guide booking
Speaker 2: into this next era? Because all of this feels relatively new.
Speaker 2: How difficult or maybe easy is it to get a
Speaker 2: handle of how you reshape booking to incorporate some of
Speaker 2: these AI tools.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I'm in the company now twenty six years. This
Speaker 3: is my tenth year is CEO. And yet look, take
Speaker 3: knowledge has been changing over these core cour of a
Speaker 3: centry and trying to get the right people, the good
Speaker 3: talent to be able to do that.
Speaker 1: That's been done for a quarter of a century, been
Speaker 1: doing that.
Speaker 3: It's no different now than it was in the past.
Speaker 3: And by the way, we started with AI more than
Speaker 3: a dozen years ago. Man machine learning models that were
Speaker 3: being used to make sure you saw the best properties.
Speaker 3: That's AI and now generative sure, it's you know, you
Speaker 3: got to find the right people. But I'll tell you
Speaker 3: we're not. We're not researchers doing the top end, and
Speaker 3: we're certainly not spending hundreds of billions of dollars to
Speaker 3: build how new models like some of the frontier players are.
Speaker 3: We're using those models that doesn't require quite the same talent.
Speaker 1: That are using and trying to come out with these
Speaker 1: new one full models.
Speaker 2: And if I can just jump in because we're running
Speaker 2: out of time and I don't want to only ask
Speaker 2: you about AI, I want to ask you about other
Speaker 2: things too. How is your customer right now? What is
Speaker 2: the strength? What is the willingness of people not just
Speaker 2: to book vacations and book all the things that go
Speaker 2: with it, but also spend on those.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no people want to spend is certainly the higher
Speaker 3: ends of the economic strata. People are definitely spending usets
Speaker 3: in our numbers. So we came out with what the
Speaker 3: guides that looks good and we definitely see assuming there
Speaker 3: are no macro events that happen, we assume that people
Speaker 3: are going to continue to do what they did in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five, which is help explore the world. That's
Speaker 3: our mission making it easier for everybody experience the world.
Speaker 3: And I'll tell you it's a wonderful time right now
Speaker 3: for travel because it's not the excitement and going out
Speaker 3: by using AI and all these new technologies.
Speaker 2: Glenn, thank you so much for joining this morning. We
Speaker 2: appreciate your time. Glenn Foegel, the CEO of Booking Holdings,