Booking Holdings Inc.
Consumer Discretionary · Hotels, Restaurants & Leisure
Largest pure-play OTA globally. ~$170B GBV run-rate, accommodations >85% of mix, merchant share crossed 50% - payments take-rate expansion + Genius loyalty drive margin even as room-night growth slows to single digits. Agentic-AI thesis cuts both ways: BKNG ships its own AI Trip Planner (GPT-4-class) and integrates into ChatGPT/Perplexity travel agents - could become primary supply rail OR get disintermediated by hyperscaler agents going direct to hotels.
• Two-sided network - ~3M+ properties + repeat demand the AI agents must source from
• Connected Trip layering flights ($AAL $UAL inventory) + attractions onto a fixed CAC base
• Merchant mix expansion = take-rate up ~150bps multi-year, FCF conversion >100%
• Aggressive buyback + small dividend, share count down double digits over 3y
• AI Trip Planner + Booking.AI launched 2026 - agentic supply layer, not just consumer UI
• $GOOGL Gemini + $MSFT Copilot + ChatGPT agents could route hotel bookings direct to chains ($MAR $HLT) bypassing OTA take-rate
• Performance-marketing spend ~30% of revenue - $GOOGL search dependency structural
• Room-night growth decelerating to mid-single digits, Europe ~50% of mix exposes FX + EU travel cycle
• Alternative accommodations (vs $ABNB) growing but BKNG still under-indexed in supply
• Regulatory (EU DMA gatekeeper designation, parity-clause rulings) caps merchant practices
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