Booking Holdings Inc.

First-quarter room nights increased 6% year over year to 338 million. Gross bookings rose 15% to $53.8 billion, revenue increased 16% to $5.5 billion, adjusted EBITDA increased 19% to approximately $1.3 billion, and adjusted EPS increased 14% to $1.14. Management said the Middle East conflict reduced Q1 room night and gross bookings growth by about 2 percentage points, and excluding that impact room nights would have been up about 8%. For Q2, the company expects room night growth of 2% to 4% and gross bookings, revenue, and adjusted EBITDA growth of 4% to 6%; for full-year 2026, it now expects gross bookings up high single digits to low double digits, revenue up high single digits, adjusted EBITDA to grow slightly faster than revenue, adjusted EBITDA margin expansion of 0 to 25 basis points, and adjusted EPS up low to mid-teens. The company also said FX should positively affect reported full-year growth by about 2 percentage points for gross bookings, about 1.5 points for revenue, and about 1 point for adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS.

Glenn Fogel framed the quarter as strong execution in a difficult geopolitical backdrop, emphasizing that travel demand is resilient over time and that the company is focused on controlling what it can. He highlighted continued investment in the U.S., Asia, Connected Trip, Genius, and GenAI, arguing these initiatives support long-term growth and customer loyalty. His tone was confident and patient: the near term may be volatile, but he repeatedly stressed that the company has navigated similar crises before and believes travel will normalize.

Ewout Steenbergen said Q1 was affected by elevated cancellations and softer new bookings in March, with the Middle East conflict estimated to have cut room night growth by about 2 percentage points and Q2 by about 3 points. He noted Q1 adjusted EBITDA of about $1.3 billion and adjusted EPS of $1.14, and said the company generated about $3.1 billion of free cash flow while ending the quarter with $16.5 billion in cash and investments, down from $17.8 billion due largely to about $4 billion of capital return, including $3.6 billion of buybacks and a $343 million dividend. He also said the company remains on track for $500 million to $550 million of in-year savings from its transformation program and is managing costs more tightly while protecting strategic investment spend.

Analysts pressed on how much the Middle East conflict would weigh on Q2 and whether travelers outside the region were becoming more cautious. Management said Q2 would see about 3 points of headwind from the conflict, mostly from disrupted Middle East routes and transit corridors, but they did not see broad global caution outside the affected areas; instead, they said travel markets globally remained healthy aside from the conflict-related regions. Questions also focused on AI and agentic search, with management saying AI is an opportunity, not a threat, and that Penny and Booking.com’s AI tools are showing early positive conversion, faster search, lower cancellations, and better customer satisfaction. The final questions covered Genius and scaling AI features, where management said Genius will be strengthened as part of the Connected Trip strategy and that the main constraint on scaling AI is not compute or cost but testing, product readiness, and regulatory/privacy requirements.