Booking Holdings Upgrades Projections as Demand Outpaces Rising Costs

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.