Booking.com highlighted progress in “advancing our Connected Trip vision” in its recently released full-year results for 2024 but gave no figures for package holiday or dynamic package bookings.
The online accommodation platform reported booking 1.1 billion room nights and selling 49 million air tickets last year. But it gave no Connected Trip sales figures, despite chief executive Glenn Fogel reporting “connected transactions represented a high single-digit percentage of total transactions”.
Booking has been talking about Connected Trips since acquiring a tour operator software firm in 2018 but has yet to publish sales figures for this category.
The company holds an Atol for 1.27 million package customers in the UK, having cut its licence from almost 2.4 million in 2023.
Travel Weekly has previously reported Booking sells packages in the UK under the Atols of partner online agencies such as lastminute, with its own Atol covering flight-only sales.
Lastminute.com trades under the Atol of parent Bravonext which has barely increased its licence since 2023.
Fogel highlighted the role generative AI would play” in delivering even more seamless and personalised Connected Trip experience to travellers” last week, saying: “We see the development and use of AI agents . . . as a potential way to more quickly bring together the different elements of travel into a truly connected offering.”
He referred to “sophisticated work already happening across our company to integrate Generative AI into our offerings” and said Booking is “working with leading Generative AI organisations on their Agentic developments”.
‘Agentic’ AI refers to the creation of autonomous AI agents to supplement or replace human actors.
Fogel insisted: “These collaborations reflect our commitment to staying at the forefront of this rapidly developing field. We expect Agentic models will change the way some bookers use our platforms.”
He noted flight bookings on the platform increased 38% year on year and said: “Flights are an important component in many of the Connected Trips our travellers book.
“Many people start their travel planning with a flight. So, we want to get them in.
“It’s not just giving [customers] a hotel and a discount in terms of ground transportation or insurance. It’s creating . . . that travel agent in your pocket.”
Booking reports $5.9bn profit
Booking Holdings reported a 37% increase in profits year on year last week to $5.9 billion for 2024, with gross bookings up 10% on 2023 to a total value of $166 billion.
The platform’s revenue rose 11% to $23.7 billion and room nights rose 9% to 1.1 billion, with chief executive Glenn Fogel reporting “a strong finish to 2024”.
Booking reported taking more than $14 billion in revenue as a merchant (or principal) and $8.5 billion as an agency, with gross agency bookings worth $61.4 billion, and an additional $1 billion in advertising and other revenue.
Chief financial officer Ewout Steenbergen reported: “European bookers represented about half the room nights booked in 2024.”
The company’s high profitability allowed it to repurchase $1.1 billion worth of shares in the final quarter of last year, taking its total share repurchases since 2022 to almost $23 billion.
It was authorised to repurchase an additional $7.7 billion worth at the year end, and the board authorised the repurchase of up to $20 billion more in January.
At the same time, Fogel announced “an expected workforce reduction” without saying how many jobs might go.