Glenn Fogel, chief executive officer and president of Booking Holdings, joined Cheddar News to discuss second-quarter earnings and his expectations for the rest of 2022 — and about American travel opportunities. Because of the dollar strengthening against the euro, for example, Fogel says, “Europe’s, like, on sale! … So things that would have cost a certain amount last year or the year before and now are a lot cheaper, so people who want to travel to Europe are going to get a bargain right now, which is great.” 


Closing Bell

Booking Holdings CEO Looks at American Travel Opportunities

back to closing bell on shadow news, Everyone booking holdings reporting second quarter earnings after the close yesterday, giving us a snapshot of the recovering travel demand now despite travel bookings rising some 57% from the same time a year ago, there are still some headwinds facing the industry as airline staffing shortages and persistent recession fears threatened to disrupt post pandemic growth plans for the travel and hospitality sector. So joining me now is the ceo of booking holdings. Glenn Fogel glenn, thanks so much for coming on the show. What was working in this latest quarter? Well, thanks for having me. And it was a very good second quarter. And you, you mentioned the year of the year, uh increased. I look even more looking at how much we did against 2019. Pretty pandemic and showing 16% increase in room Nights vs 2019 for the second quarter. I felt that was something we should be very proud about. And we went on and we talked about how we are looking at the third quarter right now and how we think we're above where we were in 2019 right now. And we're talking about hoping for a record revenue quarter for us. And third quarter is our seasonally largest revenue quarter. So this is all good news. I'm sort of surprised that the third quarter is the seasonally biggest just because it doesn't necessarily cover um those coveted holidays. What is behind the demand, the record demand that you expect to see in business here in the third quarter. Well, it's just seasonally, it's always the summer times when people southern. I should emphasize Northern hemisphere summer. We have a lot of customers in the Southern hemisphere, not summer there right now. But the northern hemisphere summer season is always the biggest travel season. Everybody likes take that holiday during the summer. And they do certainly. I get it july and august very busy times for you. What does your data indicate about the path forward for prices? Glenn, I know you've joined me several times in the past and I think the takeaway was that people were still willing to pay higher prices. They wanted to get out there. They wanted to participate in what people are calling it revenge travel. Do you think some of those higher prices are here to stay? Well, I don't know if they're here to stay or not. But certainly people are still facing prices that are significantly higher than they were pre pandemic. In our coral, in our call last night we talked about the average daily rate of the hotels on a constant currency basis was of about 25%. For us that's a significant increase. Now it's it's always gonna be a case of supplying demand and demand way way up. And there have been some issues with supply looked up flights. For example, you mentioned it, there have been some issues and there's a shortage of pilots and flight attendants and people work on the ground at the airport. So these things can end up with higher prices than you would expect, but things always reach an equilibrium and the airlines are trying to stab the hotels are trying to bring more people to work. And at the same time demand was a real push when we got up on May was very strong. But I think that there we may have brought some of that looking forward essentially, people would have normally wait until july they immediately wanted to do in May. So there could be some equilibrium where maybe prices will decline in the future. So speaking to demand, I know this current quarter, the third quarter are expected to be very strong for you with those summer travelers. What sort of in cycling do you have here in terms of how far in advance people are planning for travel in the future, any indications about demand around the holidays or even perhaps into next year? Well, first of all, it's incredibly difficult in normal times to predict the future. Right now, my my crystal ball is about as cloudy as it's ever been. That being said, one of the interesting things is that what we call the booking window, how far in advance people book, it's still shorter than it was pre pandemic, meaning. People are not willing to book out as far in advance as they used to pre pandemic. That makes it even harder for us to predict what's going to happen in the future. Now, we have said that in the fourth quarter, we see right now, Now comparing 2019 at the same date that we have 15% more of our revenue already booked up. Now, that's on a euro basis, I want to be careful because there's been a big change in the euro. So if you convert that back to dollars, not gonna be as big a number, but the fact is having more bookings right now than we did to 19 is a good sign, but it's still a very small portion of the overall fourth quarter, so it gives a little indication, but I think nobody really knows what's going to happen. 2023, that's up for anybody to guess because we know a lot of factors out there that nobody has control over that is so very true. Glenn we are still in the midst of a pandemic, but I I do think that it's clear consumers do have an appetite to get out there and to have fun again and to have some of these experiences. So, for those who are traveling internationally, I know obviously foreign exchange rates do play a part in the actual booking and enjoyment processes, your company helping aid in that at all. Well, look, one of the great things to X for example right now, it's your apps like on sale because of what's happened in terms of the dollar strengthening against the Euro. So things that would have cost a certain amount last year or the year before and now are a lot cheaper so people who want to travel to europe are going to get a bargain right now, which is great that we're global, so we have business throughout the world where it's now cheaper for americans to go europe, it's more expensive for Europeans to come to America. So in our thing it's in the end, in the long run it will balance out. But right now I would say to somebody who's in the US if you're interested in going to europe now it's not a bad time to go now it's not a bad time to go. Are you seeing any waning and demand glenn just due to the labor shortage that persists obviously for airlines but for some of these hotel staff and restaurants as well. So one of the things that we have noticed is that we're not noticed is more important is that we looked and saw our people trading down. Usually when you start seeing people concerned about recessions or things like that, they may say I'm not gonna go for the four star hotel, I'm gonna go for the three star hotel, we're not seeing that also you see people say well I'm not gonna go seven days on those six days for a holiday and we haven't seen that either, which is something that you know right now is saying okay it's still holding up but what's going to happen in the future? Who knows? Alright, booking holdings ceo glenn Fogel glen, Always good to get your take, especially after earnings. Thank you so much for joining.