by Donald Wood
Last updated: 10:15 AM ET, Fri August 4, 2023
Booking Holdings believes that pent-up demand for travel will
outweigh the concerns about the American economy and rising costs during the third
quarter of 2023.
During a second-quarter financial call, Booking Holdings
Chief Executive Officer Glenn Fogel revealed that gross travel bookings were
$39.7 billion, an increase of 15 percent from the same quarter in 2022.
Fogel also said that room nights booked increased nine
percent, total revenues increased 27 percent to $5.5 billion and adjusted
EBITDA was $1.8 billion, an increase of 64 percent.
“In the second quarter, we continued to see robust leisure
travel demand, which helped drive stronger than expected room nights and gross
bookings results in the quarter,” Fogel said. “We have seen these strong trends
continue into July, and we are currently preparing for what we expect to be a
record summer travel season in the third quarter.”
Booking Holdings showed strong growth in the second quarter,
so the company increased its third-quarter forecast. Gross bookings are now
expected to grow slightly more than 20 percent.
Third-quarter adjusted EBITDA is also expected to be 20
percent higher than last year.
“We are particularly excited about our recently announced generative
AI-enabled travel assistants at both Priceline and Booking.com, and look
forward to learning which elements customers value the most,” Fogel continued.
Earlier this year, Fogel spoke about Booking Holdings’ years
of experience with traditional artificial
intelligence and machine learning, its repository of travel data and its
team of AI experts as putting it in a strong position.
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