Booking Holdings continues to grow its 'connected trip' vision

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Booking Holdings is seeing growth in its "connected trip" vision, where multiple trip components -- such as air, hotel and car -- are booked at the same time.

In 2025, these transactions grew in the "high 20% range," Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel said during the company's fourth quarter 2025 and full-year earnings call on Wednesday.

Transactions with multiple components also represented a low double-digit percentage of Booking.com's total transactions last year.

Fogel called out flights as an important component of these bookings, with the vertical growing 37% year over year in 2025 and representing gross bookings of $16.8 billion. He also said flights continue to bring in new customers and are part of how existing customers plan more of their trips with the company.

Booking Holdings is also working to advance "underlying capabilities" that enable multivertical bookings, including payments and customer service.

"We're advancing our connected trip vision, executing our growth strategies in Asia and the U.S. and continuing to build out AI capabilities that create more value for both travelers and partners," Fogel said.

Booking.com partners with Etraveli on flight content and technology, with the pair announcing an eight-year extension last June. Booking Holdings announced plans to acquire Etraveli in 2021, but the move was blocked by the European Commission in 2023, a decision the company said it planned to planned to appeal. As of July 2025, the appeal was ongoing.

Geographic trends

Following its reported progress in the U.S. and Asia in Q3 2025, Booking Holdings is seeing continued growth in both regions.

"We saw benefits from our continued investments into Asia and the U.S., and the booking window was more expanded than expected," Booking CFO Ewout Steenbergen said. "On a regional basis, Asia and the U.S. each delivered low double-digit growth, and Europe and the rest of world were up high single digits."

Growth in the U.S. was supported by targeted investments and momentum in the company's B2B business.
Fogel said that Asia continues to be one of the most attractive growth opportunities for the company, citing strong travel demand, rising incomes and growing cross-border travel.

"Our position in Asia benefits from the complementary strengths of Agoda and Booking.com," he said.

Fogel added that Booking Holdings intends to grow faster than the market over time.

AI efforts

Fogel also touched on the company's continued AI efforts, which have included splashy partnerships with incumbents such as OpenAI. In Q3, Steenbergen told analysts that Booking Holdings was seeing positive early signals from the partnership, including better conversion and lower cancellation rates.

In Q4, Steenbergen said the company was encouraged by the results of generative AI integration within its customer service processes.

"It's remarkable to see a year-over-year decrease in customer service costs, even as we delivered double-digit growth on gross bookings and revenue," Steenbergen said.

"Based on our learnings, in 2026 we will focus on further connecting these agentic capabilities to offer a more unified and personalized experience, deploying the technology in the places where it can have meaningful impact for customers and partners," Fogel said.

The company plans to continue collaborations with companies such as OpenAI, Google, Amazon and Microsoft.

"As general-purpose [large-language models] increasingly create new top-of-funnel entry points for travel, and generative AI drives increased global online participation and spend, our proactive engagement with major technology and AI players is positioning us to meet whatever level of demand ultimately migrates from traditional search firms to horizontal LLMs," Fogel said.

Additional results

Overall financial results for Booking Holdings, which owns Booking.com, Kayak, Priceline, OpenTable and Agoda, were strong for both Q4 2025 and full-year 2025.

In Q4, the company reported $6.3 billion in revenue, up 16% from the same period in 2024. Net income was $1.4 billion, up 34%. Adjusted Ebidta totaled $2.2 billion, up 19%. Marketing expenses reached $1.9 billion in Q4, representing an increase from $1.6 billion the year prior.

Room nights totaled 285 million, up 9%, while gross bookings increased to $43 billion, a 16% spike.

For the full-year 2025, revenue was up 13%, totaling $26.9 billion. Net income was $5.4 billion, down 8%. Adjusted Ebitda totaled $9.9 billion, a 20% increase. Marketing expenses totaled $8.2 billion, up from $7.3 billion.

The company also reported 1.2 billion room nights, an 8% increase from 2024, and a 12% uptick in gross bookings to $186.1 billion. 

Fogel said the company is still focused on advancing its generative AI initiatives to improve value for partners and travelers. 

Savings from the company's Transformation Program, announced in 2024, will enable the company to reinvest in the company in 2026. Fogel said that reinvestment should support long-term growth.

Steenbergen also flagged Booking Holdings' Genius loyalty program is a "cornerstone" of the company's value proposition, calling out "strong engagement" from travelers and partners.

"Genius members book more frequently, book further in advance and return more consistently than non-Genius travelers," Fogel said. "In 2025, level two and three Genius travelers represented over 30% of our active base and accounted for a high 50% share of rooms, up from the previous year."

The mix of Booking.com room nights booked by travelers in the higher Genius tiers was in the high-50% range for 2025, increased from the mid-50% range in 2024, Steenbergen added.

A version of this report was initially published on Phocuswire, a sister publication to Travel Weekly.

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