# Booking Holdings

Booking Holdings Inc. is an American travel technology company incorporated under Delaware General Corporation Law and based in Norwalk, Connecticut, that owns and operates several travel fare aggregators and travel fare metasearch engines including namesake and flagship Booking.com, Priceline.com, Agoda, Kayak, Cheapflights, Rentalcars.com, Momondo, and OpenTable. It operates websites in about 40 languages and 200 countries.
The company is ranked 243rd on the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by revenue. The company primarily derives its revenue from commissions, with a small portion derived from advertising. In 2023, consumers booked 1,049 million room nights of accommodation, 74 million rental car days, and 36 million airplane tickets using websites owned by Booking Holdings.$^{:43}$

## History

In 1996, Jay S. Walker founded the company in Stamford, Connecticut, which launched Priceline.com, an online travel site, that used a Name Your Own Price bidding model.
In 1999, the company became a public company via an initial public offering, making Walker, who owned a 35% stake in the company, a multi-billionaire. The company's first day on the NASDAQ National Market was on March 30; it first traded under the ticker symbol "PCLN".
The company experimented with selling other products and services such as groceries, gasoline, home mortgages, and cars, but these offerings were discontinued in 2000.
On April 1, 2014, the name of the company was changed from priceline.com Incorporated to The Priceline Group Inc.
In August 2017, KAYAK acquired the assets of Mundi, a Brazilian metasearch company.
On February 21, 2018, the name of the company was changed from The Priceline Group Inc. to Booking Holdings. On February 27, its ticker symbol was changed to "BKNG".
The company offered to acquire GoToGate; however, the deal was blocked by European regulators.

## Management and finances
### CEOs

Jeffery H. Boyd was named chief executive officer in 2002 and remained in that role until becoming chairman of the board for Booking Holdings in 2013.
Effective January 1, 2014, Darren Huston was named chief executive officer of the company, replacing Jeff Boyd. On April 28, 2016, Huston was forced to resign following an undisclosed personal relationship with an employee, and Boyd was named interim CEO.
Effective January 1, 2017, Glenn D. Fogel was named chief executive officer and president.

## Finances

The key trends for Booking Holdings are (as at the financial year ending December 31):
| | Revenue (US$ bn) | Net profit (US$ bn) | Total assets (US$ bn) | Employees |
| 2016 | 10.7 | 2.1 | 19.8 | 18.500 |
| 2017 | 12.6 | 2.3 | 25.4 | 22.900 |
| 2018 | 14.5 | 3.9 | 22.6 | 24.500 |
| 2019 | 15.0 | 4.8 | 21.4 | 26.400 |
| 2020 | 6.7 | 0.06 | 21.8 | 20.300 |
| 2021 | 10.9 | 1.1 | 23.6 | 20.300 |
| 2022 | 17.0 | 3.0 | 25.3 | 21.600 |
| 2023 | 21.3 | 4.2 | 24.3 | 23.600 |
| 2024 | 23.7 | 5.8 | 27.7 | 24.300 |

## Acquisitions

| # | Year | Company | Price |
| | 1997 | Priceline.com | |
| 1 | 2004 | Major stakes in Travelweb and Active Hotels | |
| 2 | 2005 | Booking.com | $133 million |
| 3 | 2007 | Agoda.com | |
| 4 | 2010 | TravelJigsaw / Rentalcars.com | |
| 5 | 2013 | Kayak.com | $1.8 billion |
| 6 | 2014 | OpenTable | $2.6 billion |
| 7 | 2014 | Buuteeq and Hotel Ninjas | $98 million |
| 8 | 2015 | Rocketmiles | |
| 9 | 2017 | Momondo and Cheapflights | $550 million |
| 10 | 2017 | Mundi | |
| 11 | 2018 | FareHarbor | $250 million |
| 12 | 2018 | Minority stake in DiDi | $500 million |
| 13 | 2018 | HotelsCombined | $140 million |
| 14 | 2019 | Venga | |
| 15 | 2022 | Getaroom | $1.2 billion |