Priceline Group CEO Glenn Fogel stressed the importance of
the company's vacation rental business during the company' Q2 earnings call on
Tuesday.
Fogel said that the number of vacation rental properties
offered by its Booking.com platform had grown 54% year over year, to 721,000,
all of which are instantly bookable.
"We're accelerating the number of properties we're
bringing on," he said, adding that many people go to Priceline Group's
booking sites thinking they wanted a vacation rental instead of a hotel room or
vice versa, and change their mind once they see all available options.
"That's one of the benefits of our platform," he
said. "Both types of properties are right on that results page. … We don't
drive them to one or the other."
Priceline Group reported a 16% increase in gross bookings in
the second quarter of this year, to $20.8 billion. Priceline's Q2 net income
jumped 24%, to $720 million.
Fogel called the results "strong" and said that the
company's accommodations business booked 170 million room nights globally in
the quarter, a 21% increase.
Fogel said that as of June 30, Booking.com had more than 1.3
million properties available, with 26.1 million potentially bookable rooms in
220 countries and territories.
Looking ahead, Fogel said, "We are pleased with the
performance of the business and will continue to build our franchise by adding
properties to the platform and by investing in technology, customer experience
and content expansion."