Booking Holdings Inc.

Second-quarter room nights grew 5% year over year, gross bookings rose 9% reported (about 8% constant currency), revenue increased 8% reported (about 7% constant currency), adjusted EBITDA was about $2.6 billion, and adjusted EPS was $2.54, up 15%. Gross bookings growth was helped by about a 2% rise in constant currency ADRs and contributions from flights and other verticals; revenue growth trailed gross bookings because of elevated cancellations in March. For the third quarter, management expects room nights to increase 3% to 5% and gross bookings, revenue, and adjusted EBITDA each to increase 4% to 6%. For the full year, they now expect gross bookings, revenue, and adjusted EBITDA to each be up high single digits and adjusted EPS to be up low to mid-teens; the gross bookings outlook was lowered mainly because of weaker flight ticket growth, while accommodation is largely unchanged.

Glenn Fogel said the quarter reflected strong execution and resilience in a still-uncertain travel environment. He emphasized that travel demand remains durable, even as the Middle East conflict pressures long-haul international travel and raises costs, and he repeatedly pointed to the company’s ability to focus on controllable levers. Strategically, he highlighted Connected Trip, Genius, U.S. and Asia expansion, and AI as the key long-term growth drivers, and he sounded upbeat but disciplined, stressing measurable progress and long-term value creation rather than short-term volatility.

Ewout Steenbergen focused on the numbers and the balance between growth and cost discipline. He cited room nights up 5%, gross bookings up 9%, revenue up 8%, adjusted EBITDA of about $2.6 billion, adjusted EPS of $2.54, and a nearly 40 basis point margin expansion, along with $3.6 billion of free cash flow and $17.7 billion of cash and investments at quarter-end. He also noted record capital returns of $4.1 billion, including $3.7 billion of share repurchases, and said first-half buybacks totaled $7.4 billion at an average price of about $173 per share. On efficiency, he raised expected annual run-rate savings to about $650 million, with about $100 million of incremental savings mostly from procurement and expected primarily in 2027.

Analysts pressed management on AI’s impact on conversion, traffic, and the possibility that search behavior is shifting. Management said AI-related traffic remains very small, LLM referrals are still significantly below 1% of room nights, and they are not yet sharing quantitative lift from Penny or other AI products, though they said early customer feedback is positive and internal AI is already improving productivity and lowering service costs. Questions also focused on Connected Trip and why flights and rental cars diverged from room nights; management said flights were constrained by airline capacity and higher prices tied partly to the Middle East, while Connected Trip transactions still grew low double digits and payments penetration reached 73% of gross bookings. Analysts also asked about U.S. growth, the transformation savings increase, SEO pressure, and the new B2B structure; management said U.S. growth is coming from better product, inventory, and marketing, SEO pressure is small but linked to Google display changes, and the combined B2B unit is meant to improve competitiveness while staying disciplined on incrementality.