Booking NASDAQ: BKNG CEO and Director Glenn Fogel outlined the online travel company’s priorities around artificial intelligence, its Connected Trip strategy, loyalty programs, alternative accommodations and business-to-business operations during a Global TMT Conference discussion.
Fogel said the company sees AI as a tool to make travel planning, booking and disruption management more personalized and automated. He described AI as a “prediction machine” that could eventually identify and resolve potential travel problems before a customer knows they may occur.
“We need to make it so it is easier to come up with the initial planning,” Fogel said. “Then easier to actually do all the actual bookings, reservation, get all that set up. Then when stuff falls apart, which it will, weather, mechanical, stuff happens… you want to have a system that will fix it immediately.”
AI and the Connected Trip
Fogel used an example involving a traveler in Amsterdam who had scheduled a canal tour on a rainy day and a museum visit on a sunny day. In his vision, Booking’s technology could proactively suggest switching the reservations based on weather forecasts, while handling the required changes for the traveler.
He also said the company should use customer history to improve trip discovery. Fogel cited a recent family trip to Zurich, where he said Booking could have inferred an interest in swimming from prior stays near lakes and alerted the family to a nearby public swimming area.
While Fogel said the company is “not there yet” in delivering that level of personalized assistance, he said it is progressing through experiments across its brands, including Booking.com, Priceline and Agoda.
He highlighted Priceline’s revamped AI assistant, Penny, saying the product has generated favorable customer-satisfaction scores, engagement, conversion and other metrics, though he cautioned that results are from a small sample. Booking is also pursuing separate AI-native initiatives, including one led by KAYAK founder Steve Hafner, according to Fogel.
“Being the size that we are enables us to do a lot more experimentation,” he said. “That will then bring us back knowledge, information that we can then share: what’s working really well, what’s a disaster, don’t touch that one.”
Genius Loyalty and Partner Economics
Fogel said the Connected Trip strategy is linked with Booking’s Genius loyalty program, which the company is revamping. The company aims to create a flywheel in which increased usage gives Booking more information about travelers, allowing it to provide more relevant offers and improved service.
He said more than 30% of active customers are Genius Level 2 or Level 3 members and described the program as a way to provide greater benefits to its most loyal users. However, he said the company must balance expanding loyalty benefits with maintaining the program’s value for hotel and other supply partners.
Fogel noted that hotels may be willing to offer lower rates or participate in programs such as Genius when Booking delivers incremental demand. A hotel room left vacant produces no revenue, while filling an otherwise empty room can have a meaningful impact on profitability, he said.
“I want to provide it for both sides of this marketplace,” Fogel said, referring to travelers and partners including hotels, airlines, rental-car providers, attractions and insurers.
U.S. Alternative Accommodations and Asia
In the U.S., Fogel said Booking needs to increase both supply and consumer awareness for alternative accommodations, particularly vacation homes. He contrasted Booking’s strong European brand awareness with lower recognition in the U.S. for finding homes in destinations such as Southampton, New York.
He said the company needs more inventory before it can effectively market the offering, describing the effort as a gradual process rather than one with a “magic bullet.” Fogel acknowledged supply disruption following difficulties at professionally managed accommodation companies including Vacasa and Sonder, but said Booking is working to rebuild inventory.
“Rome not built in a day, neither will our ability to get to where I want to be in the America home business,” he said. “But we are on the right path, and it is growing.”
Fogel also expressed optimism about Agoda’s position across Asia. He said Agoda benefits from localized offerings tailored to individual markets, including Korea, Japan, Vietnam and India, while Booking contributes global scale and breadth. He said the region’s demographics remain favorable for long-term travel demand.
B2B Consolidation and Competitive Position
Booking plans to bring together previously separate B2B operations at Agoda, Priceline and Booking under one leader, with the combined organization formally going live Jan. 1. Fogel said the consolidation should reduce duplication, improve efficiency and allow the company to provide a more unified offering to clients.
He called the B2B operation a “sizable business” but did not provide financial details.
Addressing competitive risks from AI-enabled search engines and social-media platforms, Fogel said travelers have always had multiple ways to discover travel options. He argued that Booking’s advantage lies in execution, trust, accurate live inventory and relationships with partners rather than exclusive access to data.
Fogel said AI has already helped the company reduce customer-service costs while improving customer-satisfaction scores. He expects automation to handle more disputes and service issues over time, while human agents use AI tools to address more complex cases.
On margins and technology investment, Fogel said management is not targeting a specific margin level. Instead, he said the company evaluates whether its free cash flow can be deployed toward organic growth, acquisitions or, if suitable opportunities are unavailable, returned to shareholders.
About Booking (NASDAQ:BKNG)
Booking Holdings Inc is a global provider of online travel and related services. The company connects consumers with accommodations, flights, rental cars, restaurants and travel experiences through a portfolio of digital brands and websites.
Its principal brands include Booking.com, which offers lodging, transportation and travel experiences; Priceline, which provides online booking services for hotels, flights, rental cars and vacation packages; Agoda, which focuses primarily on travel bookings in Asia and other international markets; KAYAK, a travel metasearch engine; OpenTable, a restaurant reservation and management platform; and Rentalcars.com, a global car rental service.
Booking Holdings serves customers, travel providers and restaurants across numerous countries and regions, with a particularly extensive international presence.
This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to contact@marketbeat.com.
Before you consider Booking, you'll want to hear this.
MarketBeat keeps track of Wall Street's top-rated and best performing research analysts and the stocks they recommend to their clients on a daily basis. MarketBeat has identified the five stocks that top analysts are quietly whispering to their clients to buy now before the broader market catches on... and Booking wasn't on the list.
While Booking currently has a Moderate Buy rating among analysts, top-rated analysts believe these five stocks are better buys.
View The Five Stocks Here
Learn the basics of options trading and how to use them to boost returns and manage risk with this free report from MarketBeat. Click the link below to get your free copy.
Get This Free Report
Continue following MarketBeat
Add MarketBeat as your preferred source on Google to see our latest stories in your feed.
