Booking Holdings Inc. — 2024 Q1
Transcript
Each turn shows the speaker, their inferred role, the section, and that turn's net sentiment (×1000).
Welcome to the Booking Holdings First Quarter 2024 Conference Call. Booking Holdings would like to remind everyone that this call may contain forward-looking statements, which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual results may differ materially from those expressed, implied and forecasted in any such forward-looking statements. Expressions of future goals or expectations and similar expressions reflecting something other than historical fact are intended to identify forward-looking statements.
Thank you, and welcome to Booking Holdings' First Quarter Conference Call. I'm joined this afternoon by our CFO, Ewout Steenbergen. I am pleased to report a strong start to 2024. Our travelers booked nearly 300 million room nights across our platforms in the first quarter, which exceeded our expectations and grew 9% year-over-year. First quarter revenue of $4.4 billion grew 17% year-over-year, and adjusted EBITDA of about $900 million increased 53% year-over-year. Both revenue and adjusted EBITDA were ahead of our first quarter expectations. Finally, adjusted earnings per share in the first quarter grew 76% year-over-year, helped by improved profit levels as well as our strong capital return program, which reduced our average share count by 9% versus the first quarter last year.
Thank you, Glenn, and good afternoon. I'm very excited to join the Booking Holdings team. I look forward to continuing to work with you and David in his new role and the rest of the leadership team to help drive continued future success for our investors, employees, traveler customers and supplier partners.
[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Kevin Kopelman of TD Cowen.
So a quick one on the guidance. Can you talk about what changed in terms of the shape of the year that you're seeing versus what you expected on the February call? And walk us through this kind of changing booking window trends that you're seeing. And then if you could comment on whether it's giving you any concern about the back half or you see it as more of a neutral change.
Kevin, this is Ewout. If you think about the second quarter guidance that we have provided to you, I think a couple of elements that you have to take in consideration. One is we are expecting a less expanded booking window in the second quarter than we have seen in the first quarter. So there has been a little bit of a pull forward of room nights from the second quarter into our first quarter results. We are expecting more of an impact from the Middle East from what we have seen so far. But in the opposite direction is that Easter is a slight benefit for the second quarter.
Your next question comes from the line of Mark Mahaney of Evercore.
Can I try 2 questions, please? First, why do you think the ROI is higher in paid marketing channels? Is that just efficiencies you found or you find that overall performance marketing channels, platforms that are out there are just providing a better return on ad spend to their customers in general? And then secondly, could you quantify at all what percentage of total transactions now are connected?
So why don't I say the first part, Mark, and I'll let Ewout talk a little bit about -- I think we gave away that -- a very generic term. I'll let him repeat it. So look, we are pleased with what we're doing with our marketing programs all around everything. And you know, Mark, we've talked about this for many, many years. We view this all holistically. And we're always looking for what is the best use of the money, what's the best way to put it to work. And when we find things that work, we put more into it. When we find things that actually are not incremental and are actually duplicative, we pull it out and say, well, let's not spend the money there.
Sure. Mark, so the percentage of connected trip as a mix of total transactions at this moment is high single digits, and that is growing very rapidly. I think the way we look at it is really in combination with multiple other elements. We're seeing that we're delivering more value for our customers. Therefore, we see higher loyalty customers moving up to higher levels of Genius, more repeat customers coming to us. We can provide them more benefits over time. They're buying more from multiple verticals, and therefore, the connected trip is growing as well.
Your next question comes from the line of Justin Post from Bank of America.
I was wondering if you can give us the update of your regional mix. We get that question all the time and just how it's changed, any regions growing faster than others at this point and how it's changed maybe since pre-pandemic. And then second, the Digital Service Act in Europe has taken hold. And just wondering if you're seeing any changes in performance marketing channels around that or any disruptions or any opportunities.
Thanks, Justin. I kind of missed the second part. Let me start with the first part, and then let Ewout pick it up on the other. So regional mix. And one of the things that we've been talking about for some years because of the pandemic. The issue has been depending on when the pandemic was in its worst parts and then people coming out of it, definitely impacted how we're doing different regional ways. So as we talked in the last year's calls -- calls last year, we talked about how Asia had been behind in coming out, but of course, we're getting a good comp because they were farther behind. And now we're still benefiting from some of that. The U.S., if you recall, came out first. So of course, we had a harder comp, so to speak, when we're looking last year.
Yes. And quickly to give a couple of numbers around the regional mix. Europe, high single-digit growth in the first quarter, that was above our expectations. Very important that we see even Europe continue to do better than our own internal expectations. Asia, mid-teens growth, particularly very strong, China, Japan, Korea, India and Indonesia. And then U.S. at low single-digit growth, as Glenn already mentioned, but we believe that we have done better than the market in the first quarter with our U.S. growth and are on great trajectory and have many additional opportunities to grow faster in the future in the U.S.
Your next question comes from the line of Doug Anmuth of JPMorgan.
Glenn, just hoping you could perhaps quantify anything on Genius frequency or bookings versus nonmembers? And maybe you can just help us understand what you see in the path of customers as they move into upper Genius loyalty tiers. And then Ewout, just a follow-up on your U.S. comments from a few minutes ago, the low single-digit room night growth above market. Is there anything to point to in that region in particular relative to the faster growth you've seen elsewhere?
Doug, we don't give away numbers in our Genius membership. We don't talk about how many are in different tiers. I can say, though, how pleased I am and how the whole program continues to grow. And that's why we're continuing to expand, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks about we are now testing additional verticals, flights, attractions. The idea is that to give more value to the traveler, but it also provides a great opportunity for our supplier partners to get incremental demand when they need it. It's really a symbiotic relationship here. We're working together with our partners to both increase the value of our business but also increase the value of their business.
Yes, Doug, a couple of additional insights around the U.S. So what we like particularly is the sequential improvement from the fourth quarter in terms of our growth. Particularly within the growth, we saw the highest growth for alternative accommodations, which is really encouraging. If you look at U.S. bookers, more international growth than domestic growth. And then again, we really very much believe that U.S. is for us a growth market opportunity. It's fantastic with the scale that we have already today, with all the strategic expansions we're doing in multiple verticals and going more direct to connected trip, generative AI and many of the other strategic initiatives that we're having that we're actually having an opportunity to expand our position over the next few years in the U.S.
Your next question comes from the line of James Lee from Mizuho Securities. Sorry, your next question comes from the line of Brian Nowak from Morgan Stanley.
Maybe to come back to the last discussion you are having about the U.S. Over the last sort of 10 years or so, you've had a lot of strategies in the U.S. between branded spending, paid search spending, the merchant product and now AI. I guess maybe for either of you, as you sort of think about the next couple of years, what do you sort of think the largest unlock will be to differentiate yourself to drive continued outsized growth within the online travel category in the U.S.?
Brian, a couple of interesting things about that question. And it's interesting when you said online, you kind of limited to online. I just had the benefit of looking at a research report by -- an industry report that talked about how much business there is that's not online yet and seeing that, saying, wow, this is still a tremendous opportunity for us. I'm speaking specifically about U.S.
Your next question comes from the line of James Lee of Mizuho Securities.
Two over here. Can you guys comment about ADR by region and kind of what you're seeing among different markets that you're operating? And also, can you update us on ADR expectations for 2024? Maybe any changes from your prior expectation. I guess lastly, any trends that you see in terms of summer travel season, I guess, especially in Europe? How does that compare to last year?
ADR by regions, James, in the first quarter, what we have seen is ADRs were up in Europe and were flat in North America and in Asia. So therefore, on a constant currency basis, 1% overall growth in ADRs as we have reported today.
And in terms of summer, as I said earlier, I said that we have a healthy growth for travel on the books that's scheduled to take place during the peak summer. And that's where we're feeling that -- why I'm feeling pleased about the summer. I'm not going to quantify it though.
Your next question comes from the line of Stephen Ju of UBS.
So I was wondering if there is anything you can share about how the folks who have access to Trip Planner might be behaving. It seems like there's a lot of potential application here because if they're doing research, then there's top-of-funnel implications. And then you could theoretically recommend other pieces of the trip as well. So this could theoretically drive greater connected trip activity. So just wondering. This has been out for a little less than a year. So I'm just wondering what you guys are seeing so far.
Yes. So it's low numbers of people who are using in such, and we're continuing to develop and learn all the time the interactions to see how people are using it. So it's a very small number of people compared to the number of people who use our services, but we are continuing to advance it.
Your next question comes from the line of Lee Horowitz of Deutsche Bank.
Great. Two if I could. Ewout, there remains sort of a robust debate on sort of what the structural growth algorithm is for online travel at this point. I guess in your early experience of booking, what strikes you as perhaps the most compelling area that you could put $1 of investment to work in order to drive faster revenue growth for longer that maybe comes in above the investor expectations? And then maybe one on fixed OpEx. Obviously, your fixed OpEx base is up materially relative to '19, particularly when you compare it to bookings growth relative to '19. So I guess maybe what has shifted in the business that is perhaps maybe a bit more capital intensive at this point or necessitating sort of greater headcount to sort of accomplish the goals that you guys want?
Yes. Thanks, Lee. So first, your question about structural growth. So I am really super positive about the outlook for the company. Why? This is, of course, a phenomenal company, super high quality, very successful. And I very much believe that we will be able to grow in the future faster than GDP. Shift of offline to online bookings. I think overall, also consumers that will spend more on experiences than on material goods.
Your next question comes from the line of John Colantuoni from Jefferies.
Just wanted to ask about underlying room night trends. just talk about in the first quarter, the size of some of the transitory impacts that you called out like Easter shift, geopolitical disruption and the booking window and sort of how that shakes out to how you think about underlying trends in the business.
With respect to your first question, room nights dynamics in the first quarter. So positives here compared to our original guidance for the first quarter were the fact that the booking window was expanding and that we're able to pull some room night bookings from the second quarter into the first quarter, healthy demand in Europe, and Europe was stronger than we anticipated, as we mentioned before, and less of an impact from the Middle East. And you saw excluding the Middle East impact, actually, the result was exactly the same. So there was no material impact from the Middle East. Easter was a negative, a small negative. But that was, of course, anticipated in the guidance that we provided before.
So on attractions -- and it's a good question to ask because we haven't talked about it a lot in the past. Attractions is mostly supplied through third parties. So we have arrangements with companies like Viator, or a Klook or Musement. And we get the supply that way. In addition -- and we don't talk about this much at all either. We also have FareHarbor, which if you may recall, we acquired that. Think of it as the OpenTable for small- and medium-sized attractions because it's a good loop into those attractions.
Your next question comes from the line of Ron Josey from Citi.
I want to ask maybe a follow-up on alternative accommodations here just given how much faster overall room nights are growing. And Ewout, you talked a little bit about this as well as Glenn, but I wanted to hear more about the supply side, the 7.4 million properties on the site. Are these higher quality than maybe what you've seen in the past? Are they differentiated from other platforms given -- that are available out there? And Ewout, you made a good mention earlier just that with Booking offering both alternative accommodations and traditional, that's an advantage. I'd love to hear your thoughts on what you're seeing from a consumer perspective, those that book both and then the mix between that going forward between those 2 bookings.
So let me first take the second part of the question in terms of alternative and traditional accommodations. We're actually not so much separating in our thinking one versus the other because we believe that our unique proposition is that we're putting both in the same way on our platforms because it is an artificial separation as we are seeing many consumers are looking for both. They want to alternate -- look at different alternatives. They want to compare. And often, if they start to look for a traditional hotel, they maybe end up with an apartment they want to rent as an alternative accommodation or the other way around. So actually, the way we look at it is we think it's actually really strong to bring all of these propositions together and have a really a combined offering to our traveler customers.
In terms of quality -- and I'd like to think that the inventory we have is high quality, obviously comes at different price points. It's a complete range. And you may not be surprised that lower-priced things may not be as luxurious the higher-priced things. And I think we cover the gamut, but we don't have enough of certain types in certain areas. And I've talked about this before. We're entering close to the summer, and I look at -- I live in the New York metropolitan area. And I'm looking, do we have enough of these high-end homes in the Hamptons? And I don't think we do. If I look at some of our competitors, I see more.
Your next question comes from the line of Jed Kelly of Oppenheimer.
Great. Just following up on that last point, Glenn. How do you think about getting more of that single unit inventory? Is it connecting more with property managers, the PMS systems? And then my second question is, just how should we view the big events in Europe this year, this summer in travel, particularly around the Olympics impacting demand or how people would travel?
Sure. So yes, and we definitely have -- you're not surprised of the fact that it's easier to get more inventory when you go to some of the managers who have significant number of the inventory you're looking for. And those multi-property managers are the place where we definitely assume more business. And we have not, until very recently, really spent a lot of time trying to do it in the low -- trying to go for individuals and trying to bring them in, too.
Your next question comes from the line of Tom White from D.A. Davidson.
Just one. I wanted to follow up on some of the prior questions on the U.S. market. I was hoping you could kind of comment on maybe the relative unit economics of your U.S. accommodations business today versus in Europe. Obviously, the Booking.com brand here is well known but less well known than in Europe. And so maybe there's like a heavier kind of marketing load per room night here. But the ADRs here are nice and high. But then again, maybe the take rates are lower. So I'm just kind of curious directionally how accommodation kind of unit economics in the U.S. stack up versus Europe at the moment and maybe where you kind of see that going over the next few years.
We don't disclose much more and giving you these regional growth rates. We don't go any further than that in terms of detail. And I don't think we'll be starting that right now. I understand your reason for asking, but for reason of competitiveness and such, we're not going to break this down any further than that.
That concludes our Q&A session. I will now turn the conference back over to Glenn Fogel for closing remarks.
Thank you. I want to thank our partners, our customers, our dedicated employees, our shareholders, and I especially want to thank Ewout for joining the team. Ewout, thank you very much. We greatly appreciate everyone's support as we continue to build on the long-term vision for our company. Thank you, and good night.
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect. Goodbye.