Booking Holdings (BKNG) 2026年第三季度业绩电话会：AI收益，第四季度展望放缓

核心要点

• 2026财年第三季度预订间夜量同比增长7%，较第二季度的5%有所加速。总预订额增长10%，按固定汇率计增长约11%。
• 调整后营收增长9%，调整后EBITDA约为46亿美元。调整后EBITDA增长9%，利润率微升至47.0%。
• 受平均股数减少7.5%的提振，调整后每股收益（EPS）增长17%至4.66美元。Booking Holdings在本季度向股东回馈了24亿美元。
• AI工具展现出早期商业吸引力。Priceline的Penny和Agoda的AI助手用户的转化率大约是非用户的两倍，而Agoda AI助手用户产生的平均预订价值高出约20%。
• “融合旅程”（Connected trip）交易量增长近20%，占Booking.com总交易量的10%出头（低两位数占比）。机票预订量增长19%，景点门票增长24%。
• 管理层预计第四季度间夜量增长1%-3%，调整后营收增长0%-2%，这反映了国际需求趋弱、中东相关干扰以及高基数效应。

关键财务数据

2026财年前九个月，Booking Holdings共向股东回馈了105亿美元，其中包括通过股票回购回馈的95亿美元。公司还表示，仍按计划将在2027年实现6.5亿美元的年化转型降本目标。

业务与运营表现

欧洲和亚洲市场的预订间夜量均实现高单位数增长。在境内游的带动下，美国间夜量增长达到中单位数水平，世界其他地区也实现了中单位数增长。全球范围内，境内间夜量增长高单位数，国际间夜量增长中单位数。

按固定汇率计算，日均房价（ADR）增长约3%，其中欧洲领涨，美国和亚洲也有所上升。国内游表现出比国际游更强的韧性，尤其是在本季度末。

非标住宿（Alternative accommodations）约占Booking.com间夜量的37%，同比2025财年第三季度上升约1个百分点。该类别的间夜量增长7%，房源列表增长9%。

机票预订量增长19%，景点门票增长24%。“融合旅程”交易量加速增长至近20%，占Booking.com总交易量的10%出头（低两位数占比）。管理层表示，跨多个旅游垂直领域预订的客户复购频率更高。

商家模式总预订额达到总预订额的约75%，上升约3个百分点。管理层将支付平台描述为“融合旅程”的重要推动力，并指出Booking Holdings能以50多种货币处理100多种支付方式。

在过去12个月中，Booking.com的2级和3级Genius会员占其活跃客户群的30%以上，贡献了接近60%（高50%区间）的间夜量。结合使用直接预订、移动App和高级Genius会员资格的客户增速明显快于其他群体。

随着较新的ChatGPT模型发布，AI引流有所加速，但仍远低于Booking.com间夜量的1%。Booking.com上使用Trips的每日AI搜索访客量从第二季度到第三季度增长了十倍。OpenTable原生的OpenAI集成在9月份带来了19万名就餐人次。

尽管预订量有所增加，但AI也有助于降低客户服务成本。6月至9月期间，Agoda每百万AI token的混合成本下降了25%以上，同时全公司的开发者生产力显著提高，每次合并请求的成本下降了两位数。

管理层业绩指引

管理层预计汇率变动将使第四季度以美元计价的报告增长率降低约2个百分点，该预测部分基于1.12的欧元兑美元汇率。

对于2026财年全年，Booking Holdings继续预计报告的总预订额、调整后营收和调整后EBITDA将以高单位数增长。调整后每股收益预计将增长10%低段至中段。

第四季度展望包含了在机票、景点与餐饮、AI功能以及底层技术基础设施方面计划增加的投资。管理层预计这些投资将被营销杠杆效益部分抵消。

风险与关注领域

管理层注意到第三季度末全球需求趋于放缓，主要表现在国际旅游方面。管理层预计中东冲突的直接和间接影响（包括机票价格上涨、部分航线运力减少以及更广泛的出行干扰）将持续至年底。

欧洲部分城市的局部动荡也影响了10月份的需求。旅客的行程变短，并选择离家更近的目的地，而国内需求保持了相对韧性。

公司强调了围绕横向AI Agent（通用AI代理）的监管不确定性，特别是在欧洲。涉及个人数据获取、商业、广告和支付的规定可能会减缓某些市场的应用推广。

AI生成的导流规模仍然较小，管理层表示，现在判断AI效率提升将如何改变Booking Holdings的长期增长和每股收益框架还为时过早。2027年上半年的已预订订单看似良好，但管理层强调这是一个早期指标，仍可能面临取消和其他变动。

分析师问答亮点

• AI变现：管理层总结了四个早期好处：更高的参与度、更强的转化率、更高的预订价值以及新增客户。Priceline的Penny和Agoda的AI助手用户的转化率大约是非用户的两倍。
• AI分销：Booking Holdings将新兴AI平台视为实现第三方流量来源多元化的一种途径。管理层认为聚合平台是具备吸引力的合作伙伴，因为它们能提供广泛的库存、实时价格、房态信息、值得信赖的品牌以及大规模变现的潜力。
• 营销效率：通过改善付费渠道回报和增加直接流量，B2C营销产生了杠杆效应。随着分销联盟业务量和收入分成佣金的增加，B2B营销费用有所上升。
• Genius忠诚度计划：管理层计划超越供应商资助的折扣，通过增加其他形式的旅客和合作伙伴价值来扩展Genius，但尚未提供具体的产品或实施时间表。
• 2027年投资：管理层拒绝在第四季度业绩公布前提供详细的2027年成本指引，同时重申意图在战略投资与短期盈利能力及成本纪律之间保持平衡。

财报电话会议完整文字记录

完整财报电话会议逐字稿

管理层陈述

Operator

Hello, and welcome to Booking Holdings' Third Quarter 2026 Conference Call. Booking Holdings would like to remind everyone that this call may contain forward-looking statements, which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are not guaranteed of future performance and are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual results may differ materially from those expressed, implied or forecasted in any such forward-looking statements. Expressions of future goals or expectations and similar expressions reflecting something other than historical facts are intended to identify forward-looking statements.

For a list of factors that could cause Booking Holdings' actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements, please refer to the safe harbor statements in the Booking Holdings' earnings press release as well as the Booking Holdings' most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Unless required by law, Booking Holdings undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. A copy of Booking Holdings' earnings press release is available in the For Investors section of Booking Holdings' website at www.bookingholdings.com.

Booking Holdings intends to use the Investor Relations page of its website, ir.bookingholdings.com to disclose material information for purposes of the SEC's regular fair disclosure. Booking Holdings incurred as investors to monitor this website in addition to other public announcements and SEC filings as an information posted on that page could be deemed to be material information.

[Operator Instructions]

And now I'd like to introduce Booking Holdings speakers for this afternoon, Glenn Fogel and Ewout Steenbergen. Go ahead, gentlemen.

Glenn Fogel

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today. I am pleased to report that our teams delivered another quarter of strong operating performance, with results exceeding the high end of our guidance across each of our key financial metrics. These results reflect the resilience of travel demand and the work our teams have done to strengthen our products and services. While travel trends can fluctuate in the near term, we remain focused on making travel easier, more connected and more personalized. This quarter, we continue to advance several priorities that support that goal.

Let me begin with AI, which is creating significant opportunities to better serve travelers and partners while strengthening our business. We believe this is the most transformational time for industries since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Particularly in travel distribution, AI is opening up new ways for people to discover, plan, book and manage travel. The technologies and the way people use them are evolving quickly. We are actively testing AI across the traveler journey, learning from real-world usage and scaling the capabilities that create the most value for travelers and partners. We have made tangible progress across our brands over the last several months. For example, at booking.com, we're expanding AI tools that help travelers explore destinations in greater detail at the top of the funnel. We also continue to advance our agent capabilities, enabling customers to cancel a booking or get answers about their stay without having to contact customer service.

Early testing is showing encouraging customer satisfactory results and fewer escalations to our service teams. Agoda launched its new AI assistant, which is now live across 21 markets and helps travelers move from an initial idea to a bookable trip using Agoda's live selection of accommodations, flight and activities. At Priceline, we continue to develop Penny, its AI travel assistant and bring more of Penny's capabilities into the main price line experience so more customers can benefit from them. These experiences show the difference between recommending a trip and actually enabling someone to book it seamlessly whether it's comparing locations, photos, room choices and prices, we can combine the ease of an AI assistant with the information, life inventory, booking capabilities and service of our platforms.

We're also excited to see the birth of new AI native experiences beyond our existing brands. In September, we launched Lola, which helps people access unique travel, dining and event inventory across platforms beyond our company through a conversational experience in a membership model. A few weeks later, we launched Aveo, a proactive AI travel agent designed to help travelers from initial planning through booking and beyond. It can bring existing reservations from our travelers e-mail history into one place and use that history to create more personalized offers and suggest ways to fill gaps in an itinerary.

They also continuously monitors prices and stays engaged after booking, alerting travelers to changes in helping them adjust their plans along the way. These platforms are testing rounds where we can explore new AI capabilities, entering quickly and apply what we learn across Booking Holdings. Our established brands give us the scale to bring successful capabilities to our partner and customer bases. This combination allows us to produce several approaches and direct resources towards the experiences that prove most useful to travelers and partners. Alongside these investments, our partnerships give us additional ways to reach travelers wherever they choose to engage. We continue to work with leading technology and AI companies, including Meta, OpenAI, Google, Anthropic and Amazon. Open Tables need an integration with OpenAI has become one of the brand's fastest-growing channels from a small base, and Open Table recent debut as the first dining partner with [indiscernible] personal agent. And Agoda is live on Muse as a launch partner in Asia, connecting Muse directly with Agoda's new AI assistant.

Finally, AI is helping us operate more efficiently. We use it to help customer service teams handle routine requests, accelerate product development and improve our internal processes. As an example, in the third quarter, customer service costs declined despite higher booking volumes while satisfaction remained high. We are also seeing higher engineering productivity while the cost per merger request continues to decline. These are real efficiency gains we are seeing today. And we believe AI can deliver more over time.

Now let me turn to the value we provide to our supplier partners. As the benefits of these AI improvements that we bring to our traveler customers have been built on the foundational relationships we have developed with our suppliers over many years. Independent hotels and alternative accommodation partners generate the vast majority of our room nights at Booking.com. Another way to look at this is the 10 largest global hotel chains account for only a low double-digit percentage of room nights at Booking.com. So many of our partners do not have significant resources. The value we provide to them is to improve their business by enabling them to have incremental travelers from around the world at lower cost and by providing services and expertise they may not be able to develop on their own.

For example, small and even medium-sized accommodation providers are generally not able to efficiently market themselves globally. Our brand and marketing reach supported by years of investment in machine learning and AI helps connect partners offers with travelers across markets and channels. Partners benefit from that reach without upfront marketing costs, paying us only when they earn revenue from a room night that might have otherwise gone empty.

To help our partners, we provide them with sophisticated data and tools to better understand travel demand patterns and improve their performance. And we provide different products like Genius that offer them opportunities to be more competitive. Our value goes beyond just showing a property to a traveler with advice on how to display it to improve conversion, we provide payment services, we provide customer service in over 40 languages, we built AI agents and people available around the clock. Our dedicated partner service teams are on the ground across the world, working directly with properties to help them improve their operations.

Local knowledge matters, traveler preferences, payment methods and regulations vary widely from one market to another. Payments are a good example. Travelers want to use methods. They know and trust even when those methods are unfamiliar to the property where they are staying, Today, we can process more than 100 pay methods in over 50 currencies. That helps properties welcome guests from around the world without having to manage that complexity themselves or lose bookings because they cannot accept a traveler's preferred payment method. This combination of global reach and local expertise supports our growth in markets where we see significant opportunity. The U.S. and Asia are 2 such important priorities. In the U.S., we have mentioned in the past seeing significant room to grow over the long term. We've invested in product, supply, brand, marketing and technology to build a strong offering over the past several years, and our progress is clear. We have outperformed the broader market in terms of room night growth for the last 3 years as we have deepened direct engagement and more travelers have chosen to book multiple parts of their trip on our platform. These results reflect the consistent execution of our strategic priorities and reinforces my confidence in the opportunity ahead.

Asia is another important area of growth. It's many distinct markets call for local execution, and we believe Booking.com's global reach and Agoda's local expertise position us well to deliver it. Across the region, we continue to invest in products, payments, marketing, distribution, supply relationships that reflect how people travel in each market. As we discussed last quarter, that can mean adapting payment options, working at local properties or reaching customers through the social and messaging platforms that they use every day. These investments help us better serve travelers and partners while supporting our long-term growth in the region. Across all of our markets, we are focused on building relationships that extend beyond a single booking.

We want to help travelers with more of their trip and give them more reasons to choose us again for the next one. Our connected trip efforts and Genius loyalty program are central to that goal. Travel can be fragmented. The treatment involve accommodations, flights, ground transportation and attractions, often with different providers. By bringing these pieces together, we can engage travelers earlier help with more of their trip and seek to build a stronger relationship over time. Genius adds value for travelers and encourages them to return to Booking.com, and we are seeing progress on both. Connected trip transactions where a traveler books more than 1 travel vertical with us for the same trend grew 3x faster than Booking.com's overall transactions from a relatively small base. Those travelers also tend to return more frequently.

Higher tier Genius members plan further ahead returned more consistently and booked directly at a higher rate than non-Genius travelers. Over the last 12 months, Level 2 and Level 3 members represented more than 30% of Booking.com's active customer base and accounted for a high 50% share of room nights, up from a year ago. In closing, our teams executed well in the third quarter, delivering solid results while advancing the priorities I discussed today. I want to thank them for that work. The pace of change in technology is accelerating and therefore, the pace of change in travel is also accelerating. AI is creating new ways for people to discover and plan trips, compare various travel options and do it all in an easier way. And we are building quickly to continue to help shape that future. Through it all, though, our mission remains the same, to make it easier for everyone to experience the world.

We have spent years building the brands, partner relationships and services that help us deliver on that mission. We help travelers turn ideas into trips that they can book with confidence, and our services help our partners welcome customers from around the world. However, a traveler begins their travel inspiration and planning we see opportunities to make the whole travel process better, easier with less frustration and anxiety. In the end, it comes down to providing more value to both sides of the travel marketplace. That is the work our teams are focused on is why I am confident in the future of Booking Holdings. With that, I'll turn the call over to Ewout to discuss our financial results and outlook.

Ewout Steenbergen

Thank you, Glenn, and good afternoon, everyone. I will now review our results for the third quarter and provide our current thoughts for the fourth quarter and full year. All growth rates on a year-over-year basis and the reconciliation of non-GAAP to GAAP financials can be found in our earnings release. I'm pleased to report that room nights gross bookings, adjusted revenue and adjusted EBITDA all exceeded the high end of our guidance for the third quarter. We delivered profitable growth in a complex macro and travel environment while investing in our long-term priorities.

Our results reflect the fundamental strength of our global business and the continued focus and discipline of our teams. Travel demand was resilient in the quarter, although we saw some moderation towards the end of the period. Prices increased as we saw constant currency ADRs up approximately 3% year-over-year, primarily driven by Europe, but also by the U.S. and Asia.

We saw a slight expansion in the booking window in Europe and at the global level, while the booking window in the U.S. modestly contracted. Average length of stay increased year-over-year for our business outside Asia as Asia domestic travel outpaced international travel by the widest margin of any region.

Now let's turn to our third quarter results. Room nights grew 7%, up from the 5% in the second quarter, driven by an improvement in international travel from bookers in Europe and Asia, while domestic room night growth was stable at a higher level. Globally, domestic room nights grew high single digits and international room nights grew mid-single digits. We continued to navigate the indirect impacts of the conflict in the Middle East with elevated airfares and reduced capacity on certain routes weighing on long-haul travel demand, looking at room night growth by Booker region, Europe grew high single digits with domestic room nights up high single digits. Asia grew high single digits with domestic room nights up low double digits.

The U.S. grew mid-single digits, driven by domestic room night growth. We're pleased to see another consecutive quarter of direct channel growth in the U.S. Rest of World grew mid-single digits, which was stable from the second quarter as we continue to see growth from bookers in the Middle East. Over the past 4 quarters, our B2C direct mix remained stable in the mid-60% range as room nights booked through the direct channel continue to grow in line with the rest of the business. While the mix of room nights coming from direct visits to our websites and mobile apps increased year-over-year. LLM referrals have accelerated over the last several weeks, it still accounts for significantly less than 1% of Booking.com's room nights.

Organic referrals increased following the release of the latest ChatGPT models, which improved citation rates and drove more traffic to our platforms. paid referrals are also growing as we continue to partner with OpenAI by expanding into additional markets and testing and refining our approach. The mobile ad mix of total room nights over the past 4 quarters was in the high 50% range, up from the mid-50% range a year ago and the mix of Booking.com room nights booked by travelers in Genius Levels 2 and 3 was in the high 50% range, which also increased from a year ago.

What is particularly encouraging is behavior of travelers who engage with Booking.com across all 3 dimensions, looking directly using our mobile app and participating in Genius Levels 2 and 3. Room nights booked by this cohort grew meaningfully faster than those booked by other travelers, both in the third quarter and year-to-date.

These trends reinforce our confidence in the investments we are making to deepen our direct relationships with travelers, and we believe our broader selection of accommodations slides and attractions, together with progress in payments, the connected trip and more personalized and proactive AI-powered experiences will give travelers even more reasons to choose us and return for future trips.

Alternative accommodations represented approximately 37% of Booking.com's room nights up about 1 percentage point from the third quarter of 2025 with room night growth of 7% improving from 4% growth in the second quarter as we saw an acceleration across all of our major regions. We also saw alternative accommodation listings growth accelerate to 9%, which is an encouraging signal for our future growth in this category.

In our other travel verticals, flight tickets increased 19% year-over-year, a strong acceleration from the second quarter and ahead of the broader market despite continued pressure from elevated ticket prices and reduced capacity on certain routes. Attraction tickets grew 24% year-over-year, also an acceleration from the second quarter. Importantly, connected trip transactions growth accelerated to almost 20% year-over-year and represented a low double-digit mix of Booking.com's total transactions. This year has increased substantially over the past few years as we have expanded our supply across travel verticals beyond accommodations. We expect further increases as we deliver more peripheralize and Gen AI-powered experiences and bring these offerings together more seamlessly through our Genius loyalty program. Our data shows that travelers who book with us across multiple travel verticals return more frequently, reinforcing our confidence in the connected trip opportunity.

Our total merchant gross bookings represented approximately 75% of total gross bookings, up about 3 percentage points year-over-year. Our merchants payments platform is a key enabler of our connected trip vision, providing travelers with a more seamless and flexible booking experience, helping partners accept customers' preferred payment methods and generating incremental contribution margin dollars for our business. Total gross bookings increased 10% year-over-year or approximately 11% on a constant currency basis.

Constant currency growth bookings growth was approximately 4 percentage points higher than room night growth, primarily reflecting the higher constant currency ADRs and the contribution from flights and other verticals. Adjusted revenue increased 9% year-over-year or approximately 10% on a constant currency basis.

Adjusted revenue as a percentage of gross bookings was about 15 basis points lower year-over-year due to a higher mix of flight bookings and the timing of bookings versus travel partially offset by higher revenues from facilitating payments. Marketing expense increased 11% year-over-year, slightly faster than gross bookings, driven primarily by faster growth in B2B affiliate marketing expenses. Excluding our B2B affiliate business, our B2C business at marketing leverage in the quarter as we continue to aim to grow our top line metrics faster than marketing investments.

Adjusted sales and other expenses were 2.0% of gross bookings and were a source of leverage. Efficiencies in third-party customer service, supported by AI-enabled tools more than offset higher payment expenses associated with our increasing merchant mix. Disciplined cost management continued to support operating leverage in the quarter. Adjusted fixed operating expenses increased 6% year-over-year, reflecting actions we have taken to manage our cost base. As our use of generative AI scales, we are applying the same cost discipline, including price caps on higher cost models and model routing simpler tasks to more cost-effective models.

For example, at Agoda, our blended cost per 1 million AI tokens declined by more than 25% between June and September. For the company overall, developer productivity continued to improve while cost per merch request declined double digits. These gains are helping us deliver new capabilities faster, including several Glenn highlighted in his opening remarks. Adjusted EBITDA of approximately $4.6 billion grew 9% year-over-year. We delivered 9% adjusted revenue growth, while expanding our adjusted EBITDA margin slightly to 47.0%, including stock-based compensation as an expense a powerful combination of growth and profitability that underscores the strength of our business model and disciplined execution.

Adjusted EPS of $4.66 per share increased 17% year-over-year, faster than adjusted EBITDA growth, helped by a 7.5% reduction in our average share count. We continue to execute on our transformation program and remain on track to achieve the full $650 million in annual run rate savings in 2027. We incurred approximately $23 million of transformation costs in the third quarter, the majority of which were excluded from our adjusted results.

Now on to our cash and liquidity position. Our third quarter ending cash and investments balance was $16.2 billion compared to $17.7 billion at the end of the second quarter. During the quarter, we generated free cash flow of $1.1 billion, which was impacted by a working capital decrease driven by a $3.6 billion seasonal unwind of deferred merchant bookings. We also returned $2.4 billion to shareholders, including $2.1 billion of share repurchases.

During the first 9 months of 2026, we returned $10.5 billion of capital to shareholders, including $9.5 billion of share repurchases. We remain committed to a disciplined capital allocation framework, investing behind the highest return growth opportunities across our business while also actively returning capital to shareholders and maintaining a strong balance sheet.

Moving to our thoughts for the fourth quarter. The travel environment is mixed. As I mentioned earlier, we saw some moderation in global demand trends toward the end of the third quarter, driven by international travel. Domestic travel continues to hold up as we are seeing travelers take shorter trips and choose destinations closer to home.

In October, a number of external factors have also affected demand, including disruptions to travel to and from the Middle East, the conflicts broader indirect effects, such as elevated airfares and localized unrest in certain European cities. Our guidance reflects these near-term disruptions and assumes that both the direct and indirect impacts of the Middle East conflict on travel persists through the end of the year.

Our guidance also assumes recent FX rates for the remainder of the year, including the euro-U.S. dollar exchange rate at 1.12. We estimate changes in FX will negatively impact our fourth quarter reported U.S. dollar growth rate by about 2 percentage points. For the full year, we estimate changes in FX will positively impact reported growth rates by about 1 percentage point for gross bookings and about 0.5 percentage point for adjusted revenue.

We currently expect fourth quarter room nights to increase between 1% and 3%, reflecting the toughest prior year comparison of 2026 and the uncertainty around the impact of recent events on travel demand. We currently expect gross bookings to increase between 2% and 4% or between 4% and 6% on a constant currency basis, which is higher than room night growth due to higher constant currency ADRs and flight ticket growth.

We currently expect adjusted revenue to increase between 0% and 2% are between 2% and 4% on a constant currency basis slower than gross bookings due to flight bookings mix and differences in the timing of bookings versus travel, partially offset by higher revenue from payments. We currently expect adjusted EBITDA to be about flat year-over-year or up about 2% on a constant currency basis and to be impacted by increased planned investments behind our long-term strategic priorities including expanding capabilities across non-accommodation verticals, such as flights, attractions and dining advancing our AI capabilities and enhancing our underlying technology infrastructure and platforms.

We expect these investments to be partially offset by marketing leverage. For the full year, on a reported basis, we continue to expect gross bookings, adjusted revenue and adjusted EBITDA to be up high single digits and adjusted EPS to be up low to mid-teens. At the high end, this outlook is broadly in line with our long-term constant currency growth ambition of at least 8% for gross bookings and adjusted revenue and 15% for adjusted EPS.

In conclusion, our third quarter results demonstrated the resilience of our global platform and the disciplined execution of our teams in a dynamic environment. We continue to focus on key areas that we believe can further strengthen our long-term growth outlook, including expansion in key markets, deepening traveler relationships through connected trip and Genius creating greater value for our partners and advancing our approach to AI. As agentic AI evolves, we are taking a multipronged approach: First, building our own AI agent powered experiences; second, participating in new distribution channels that bring incremental demand at attractive economics; and third, using AI to improve customer service, developer productivity and operating efficiency. We believe Booking Holdings is well positioned to win as the landscape evolves.

Our confidence is grounded in the capabilities that matter when inspiration turns into an actual trip, extensive supply, real-time price and availability, trusted brands, attractive loyalty programs payments and service capabilities and long-standing relationships with travelers and partners. We believe these will create economic value, both within our own platforms and through emerging channels supporting sustained growth and attractive returns over time. With that, we'll now take your questions. Operator, will you please open the lines?

Operator

[Operator Instructions]

Your first question comes from the line of Doug Anmuth with JPMorgan.

分析师问答

Douglas Anmuth

I have two. Just first on the tangible AI progress that you're seeing in brands. Obviously, good to see the customer service cost efficiencies. Is there anything that you can share in terms of some of the top line benefits perhaps that you're seeing around either conversion rates or frequencies or just other ways to quantify and then on those accelerating AI referrals in recent weeks, are you seeing any differences in some of the newer agents like Muse and Grokbot relative to what you saw previously with kind of the other LLMs.

Ewout Steenbergen

This is Ewout. First, on some of the tangible AI progress. There are 4 key categories where we see some positive early indicators. So let me explain that and give us a couple of examples around that: First, we're seeing higher engagement. So examples here are Booking.com's daily AI search visitors are up 10x with Trip surge in the third quarter compared to the second quarter. And second example here is our new Vayo platform users are connecting their e-mail, and we're seeing strong conversational engagement with Vayo at the moment.

Second area is higher conversion. So a couple of examples, again, price line spending and Agoda's AI assistant, users have converted at approximately twice the rate of nonusers. Third area, higher booking value with Agoda's AI assistant users have an average booking value of approximately 20% higher than nonusers. And the fourth category is incrementality. So again, some examples. OpenTable's native integration with OpenAI has become one of the brand's fast and growing channels and had in September 190,000 seat covers and then OpenTable's agentic interactions with Muse and other horizontal agents have brought a significant number of completely new customers to our platform.

So 4 key areas where we see improvements and really positive indicators, higher engagement, higher conversion, higher booking value and incrementality. It's early days, but we're encouraged by the momentum, and we really think these are really nice positive uplifts on these metrics. In terms of your question around referrals from LLM versus the newer horizontal agents, what we are seeing that this traffic is still very small in aggregate. So nothing is really jumping out there in terms of one that is growing faster than another. So it's still very small.

Yes, we have seen some acceleration in the recent weeks, but it's still significantly below 1%. I also would like to point out that the vast majority of that traffic is coming to us and that is based on third-party data sources. So we're not missing out on the traffic, but it's still really small.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Mark Mahaney with Evercore ISI.

Mark Stephen Mahaney

Two questions, please. I know you've got this partnership with Muse in -- with Agoda in Asia. And just what's the -- just talk a little bit about the strategy of -- you've got three, sort of, global brands. Why work with Muse, with Agoda versus [indiscernible] one of the others? And then the marketing deleverage in B2B, and I think that's been the case for a quarter or 2 or 3. I think you're leaning into this as a channel. Could you talk about any signs of traction or success more momentum you're getting just in the B2B segment?

Glenn Fogel

Mark, why don't I take the first one, and then I'll let Ewout will take the second one. So it's interesting, which agreements with whom we get done first and priorities, et cetera. Look, I think the important thing to recognize is that we are working with everybody all the time, some things are going to happen faster than others, something is going to get complete faster than others. But you should not think just because we have Agoda getting launched in Singapore is somehow more important than what we end up in the U.S. with Muse or anyone else. Please don't misinterpret that.

And I have confidence that we have great relationships with all the players and not just the ones that you know now because we know there are a lot more coming down the road.

Ewout Steenbergen

Mark, with respect to your second question, with respect to B2B and marketing deleverage. So let me point out the following. So we are pleased, of course, the third quarter marketing leverage for B2C and also, of course, pleased with the growth of our B2B business volumes. So specifically, your question about B2B, yes, that is a business that is getting more focus and attention internally. I think you know about our plans that we're launching on January 1, a combined B2B business. So you will also see then more details about the numbers because most likely, we will break that out going forward. What is happening there is if the business is growing and they are reporting more revenues, usually the commission structures are based on a rev share.

So therefore, also the rev share and the commissions are going up. and that is flowing through the marketing line. But that's for a good reason because if that is going up, it means that from an economics perspective, it's also very healthy for the company.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Matt Cost with Morgan Stanley.

Matthew Cost

I'm sure you've seen data out there showing that a lot of the commercial activity that's happening on these early agents is skewing towards travel. And I guess to the extent that you're seeing that comes to your brand. Should we view that as something that is just a convenience for people who are going to book travel already? Or is there an aspect here where by removing friction from a very complex purchase process, there may actually be incremental demand that's engendered by these tools?

Glenn Fogel

So that is an interesting thing, and we are seeing the value you're mentioning. Lots of people using these personal agents or any form of AI to do travel discovery, it's easy. It's interesting. People like to do travel discovery throughout all the time. It does end up with a lot of bookings as Ewout mentioned, getting the referral numbers are pretty darn small, and we believe we're getting a good number of the total number out there. So what does it mean for us though.

Over time, it may end up being another perhaps significant way that we get business the way we've gotten business in the past from other people who had a front door discovery and may be making it easier for people, less friction to try and learn what they need to do. So perhaps we end up with things that are actually going to convert at a higher rate.

We believe it's important enough that we're coming out with things like Vayo, like [indiscernible] and all our brands coming out with things, too. So people can come to us first. And look, what I really want to do is complete our connected trip using AI to make it easier, provide more value to the consumer so that when they're thinking of travel, they always want to come to us first. And we know we're not going to get everyone. But we absolutely believe that we should, with the technology capabilities that we have, with the capital we have, with the reasons we have, with the relationship with the suppliers, so we can help provide more value to the consumer. And of course, that customer service that is so important, being able to make people able to trust that when they come to us, they're going to be able to have the best experience in their travel. Those type of things are really important. I believe this is actually a wonderful thing that there could be much more of a fragmentation of the way people are beginning their discovery so that enables us to actually be able to gain customers at a lower cost. We could see that happen. Ewout, anything you want to add to that?

Ewout Steenbergen

Just to say one more thing is strategically, of course, these new channels are important for us because it gives us an opportunity for diversification of third-party channels, and that ultimately drives an economic advantage to us. We have been talking about that in the past, but I think that is already really showing up in practice because clearly, there are many AI platforms now many AI tools, agentic tools out there. They're still figuring out their economic model. They haven't really come to a conclusion because the competition is very high. And we get the vast majority of the traffic because they like to connect to aggregators that is much better for them, and that is good for us. But from an economics perspective, the diversification looks like is going to be a positive for us at the end.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of -- I'm sorry, of Alex Bruno with Redburn Atlantic.

Unknown Analyst

I'll ask a follow-up on that previous question. It's something I've asked in the past about fragmentation. You're obviously seeing some leverage. If you could talk about the components of that, that would be very helpful. And then sat over here in Europe, we have, obviously and specifically Continental Europe, seen the DMA impact on Google's search results such as doing a bit of a spanner in what they can display when people search for travel. I wonder if you could give us some thoughts on that and how it might affect your numbers.

Ewout Steenbergen

Alex, with respect to our B2C leverage, nothing is different than what we have always done. We're managing that in a disciplined way. We see 2 advantages there are flowing through. One is we're always trying to drive up higher ROIs in our paid channels. And then also, what we are seeing is that the direct traffic is up at the same time. So both in combination are helping us to achieve B2C marketing leverage in the third quarter. And also, we are looking at the possibility to deliver on marketing leverage in the fourth quarter as well. So this is always our standard, what we are going after. Glenn, do you want to take the question about Europe, the DMA and Google?

Glenn Fogel

Yes. I'll talk a little bit about that. We -- right now, we don't see any great advantage from this change. Obviously, it's early, et cetera. We haven't seen anything in terms of numbers change. I know some people have been talking about that, oh, it's going to be such an advantage for the OTAs. I hope it is. I haven't seen it yet. We'll see. What's interesting is since you mentioned DMA, it gives me an opportunity to talk about something that I don't see a lot of people writing about. And that talks about the regulatory framework in many parts of the world, particularly in Europe. And how these personal -- the horizontal personal agents are going to be able to do things or not. What sort of access they're going to be allowed to have in terms of personal information, what the requirements are going to be, what's going to be allowed in being a commerce platform, along with being an advertising platform.

It's very complex. There's a lot of regulatory stuff out there, whether it be the DMA or the EUAIA or the DSA or the [indiscernible] LAP laws or you get into the U.K. And I saw something but I wanted to see or senior executives, I think it was out of the treasury. It was regarding the [indiscernible], I think, in terms of being able to allow to do monetary things in Muse or not. I think there's parts of the world where the adoption of these horizontal personal agents may be much slower than is anticipated. And we'll see what that -- what that may mean for ourselves, we don't know. But it is interesting that I don't see a lot of deal talking about that.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Justin Post with Bank of America.

Justin Post

Great. A couple on agentic. I think in addition to economics, one of the concerns is they might be preferencing direct sites versus OTAs. Are you seeing any evidence of that? And what can you do to really improve your relevance in AI results?

And then second, just thinking about the cost increases in Q4, I think there's some questions on how you're thinking about investment in '27 and what that could do to your algorithm? Any help with that would be very helpful.

Glenn Fogel

So I'll talk a little bit about the first question, I'll let Ewout talk about investments going forward. So it's interesting you say that because I haven't -- I've heard some of that, but I see other things too, where the OTs are actually getting a greater advantage right now. Here's the end -- the real story is -- and this is the way we believe we need to play it is you got to buy more value, whether it be to a human traveler or to the agent, such that the agent, we want that agent or that person to be using us look ourselves on to us transacting with us.

If we are able to do that, in the long run, we will have a competitive advantage. And that's really the way it is. Now one of the things that we provide is to the small independent. Ewout mentioned a little bit about that how a very small percentage of our business comes from the big hotels. And so much is the small, medium-sized. We don't have the resources. We absolutely are afraid that in the new world, they won't be seen at all. But that's okay because we're there to provide them what they need. That's what we've been doing for the almost 27 years I've been with this company, is providing value to our partners being able for them to get incremental travelers because they could not where it was 20 years ago, go online and have a website or then they don't have an app or now it's how do I show up in an LLM, how is an agentic horizontal [indiscernible] see me or whatever. We are there to provide it for them. And we do it at a risk-free rate. Essentially, they don't have to pay anything unless they get ahead in the bed, and that's what we are able to do for them.

So I absolutely believe that we have an advantage. So this is the great time for us now being able to use our [indiscernible] all these things to be able to provide even more value to both the travelers and the partners, and I see the future is very bright. So Ewout, do you want to talk about investments need to achieve all this?

Ewout Steenbergen

Yes, Justin, let me give some commentary about the fourth quarter, and you also asked about 2027. So first, about the fourth quarter. Our philosophy is to make disciplined investments for the long term of the company, while also protecting profitability in the near term. So from a big picture perspective, I think everyone knows that we have already industry-leading EBITDA and EBITDA margins, and that is on a fully loaded basis. So we're not capitalizing a lot, we have a fully loaded expense base, including stock-based compensation. We don't understand how people are pulling that out.

That's a real cost of running your business. At the same time, we also have strong execution and discipline regarding the delivery on our productivity programs, efficiency targets, operating leverage and that is then offset by increased investments in strategic initiatives. And those were planned in the fourth quarter at a higher level, but obviously, we have attractive business cases underneath. I also would like to point out that our full year EBITDA margins we expect to be stable. So with respect to 2027, it's a bit too early to provide commentary. We'll do that in February with our fourth quarter results. But what I can say is that we remain confident with respect to our long-term growth outlook, and we will stay disciplined how we are planning to invest in the business also next year and in the future.

Maybe one thing to throw out for 2027, and this is not related to cost, but more on the commercial side. It's a very early directional indicator. So it's still subject to change, like cancellations and others. But if you look at our on-the-book statistics for the first half of 2027, that actually looks healthy. So that gives us confidence in the outlook for next year.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Ron Josey with Citi.

Ronald Josey

I want to go back to your comments on just applying the learnings from Lola and Vayo and sort of using bookings platforms as a testing ground. Just talk to us about the metrics inside you're looking for from those tools and the other AI tools that you have before applying the learnings. And then we sort of just talked about it, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on just the value of the supply that booking has as agents become a larger part or potentially a larger part or a new front door for the Internet overall. So just the value of booking supply.

Glenn Fogel

Ron, so in terms of what we use in terms of learnings and why we started up to greenfield operations to be able to come up with a new agentic way to do our travel business in 2 different ways, 2 different companies in different -- I mean not the same, probably reading about what they're doing. The way we do this is seeing what customers like, what is converting well what people are signing up for, whether or not, for example, at Vayo, will they take an e-mail -- we have the whole e-mail history in the thing or not? Well, we've learned and actually, yes, most will, which is really good to know. And that's how we do it.

Now in terms of the actual specific metrics, I'm not going to go around in the details of how we're going to do it. But obviously, when we see things that are working, that is such a value to bring to the much bigger companies booking, Agoda, Priceline and being able to transfer that so that they can then take the advantage of doing that. It really is a wonderful place to be when you have the capabilities, the capital, the resource of [indiscernible] that you can afford to do this type of agile creating new things and being able to test it out and then test bed type stuff, come bring it back when it's working or don't bother. And it didn't hurt you because you tried it on a much bigger platform than it wasn't working. So that's on that one. In terms of supply, what is the value -- I make sure I got you right, Ron, if you're asking, what what value do we provide to the supplier in a new AI world? Is that -- was that the question?

Ronald Josey

More like the other way around. So in other words, when we do our searches on Muse, we see bookings show up whether we're looking for a hotel in Panama City Panama or in Paris, for example. And so booking inherently is always there. And I think that's because of the supply, but I wanted to get your thoughts there.

Glenn Fogel

Yes. Why are we showing up more there than others. That's a hard thing to say. I think we have a lot of theories about why the models are choosing us. We believe it has lots deal with the level of the content, the reliability of it, the value that the way the models look through and see what value this content guides. Two things, though, there is no handbook out, how do you show up more in an LLM show more in a personal agent or not. In the end, what we really want is what I said earlier, though, and this is being able to provide the more value. So the agents -- agent to agent, our agent is talking to the personal agent of the horizontal and really being instantly giving all the reasons. It's better -- and it's not just price, of course, all the elements that we've talked about over the last measure about what we provide to the traveler and to the partner that is the best place to do this trial in such a way that the horizon agent recognizes it and he's recommending or saying, do it here because this is best. That's what we want to achieve.

Ewout Steenbergen

If I can add a few elements there, Ron. I think brand credibility is a very important element. So I think that's why those horizontal agents want to work with us because it gives them instant credibility, being associated with our brand. As I said before, they like to partner with aggregators. It's going to be very expensive for them to connect to 4.7 million properties directly and get all the information about real-time data, pricing availability. So they can get that through us and immediately have also the possibility in the future of a potential monetization model with us.

So those are a couple of reasons why we think that we are showing so much up on those platforms.

Glenn Fogel

And just to add to Ewout's point, if these horizontal agents do go down the route of some type of monetization that is not dissimilar to what we have been doing over the last 2 decades, we will be even in a better position.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Benjamin Black with Deutsche Bank.

Benjamin Black

So Genius has become a much larger part of your transaction mix. So can you dig into how you're thinking about the next evolution of the program and how you can deepen loyalty without maybe becoming more reliant on supplier-funded discounts? And then maybe a follow-up on the [ 88 15 ] framework. AI begins to drive real efficiencies across customer service, across engineering, across other parts of the cost base. Does [indiscernible] 15 still seem like the right long-term sort of EPS algorithm? Or is there a scenario where AI driven operating leverage allows you to outperform that framework without even driving faster top line growth.

Glenn Fogel

Thanks, Benjamin. I'll take the first. I'll let Ewout take the second there. It's -- to be fair, repeat that first one again, gives me a little more time to think exactly how I want to answer it.

Benjamin Black

Yes, it's really about Genius and how you're thinking about evolving it here. It's already become a much larger part of your transition mix.

Glenn Fogel

Yes. All right. So here I not kind of tease this out a little bit in the past. Just want to be very careful what I say. We are going to improve Genius. It's going to be an even better program down the road. I obviously believe -- and as I said earlier, I said it several times now, the issue, the importance of providing value, providing value to that traveler and it's also valued to the partner. Genius works right now very well because the partner is funding a lot of it and is getting a good ROI out of that. And of course, the traveler is getting a great deal too because again, lower cost further holiday. So it works both ways. But there are a lot of other ways we can improve upon that tremendously. There are other things that travelers want and maybe the partner will be willing to give it up either and no cost because there's very little marginal cost to them or perhaps they'd be will do at a lesser cost that we could help work with.

These are ways we have to think about down the road is how do we continue to make sure that we are giving more value and in a way that travelers us get even more value because they use us loyalty, spend more with us, stay with us more, do things more with us, get more benefit, continue to do that in a way that it creates a flywheel effect and continues to grow.

Now not going to give away when we're going to bring out what or what they're actually going to be, but I absolutely recognize the importance of continuing to come up with a differentiating value that enables us to continue to show up as the better way for the traveler to users and for the partner to participate. And about, I think the question about algo is yours.

Ewout Steenbergen

Yes, Ben, with respect to the [ 88 15 ] and the benefit from AI that might flow into that, I think it is a little bit too early to tell you exactly how we will see that changing our long-term algorithm. But what I can say is that we're already moving from experimentation to measurable operating value across the company coming from AI. So in a couple of areas. First, we are fundamentally improving the travel experience for our traveler customers, think about engagement, think about conversion, think about booking value about incrementality and some of the examples that I gave earlier during this call.

Then we have been speaking before about the benefits, for example, in customer service, where the average cost per booking are coming down and the customer satisfaction remains high and also in our engineering groups where the average cost per merch request are coming down in a significant way. And then the third area is our head count growth has been very minimal over the last 2 years, and that has been mostly in lower cost locations like our center of excellence in India, where we also can find great talent. So we're pleased that we're already seeing some tangible results, but it is a little bit too early to exactly determine in which way that will impact our long-term algorithm.

Operator

We have time for 1 last question, and that question comes from the line of Meredith Jensen with HSBC.

Meredith Prichard Jensen

I just had one question, a little bit related to the last, but potentially a smaller piece to the pie. But if you might talk about a little bit of the changes in the distribution landscape and how it might open some new doors for booking and hotel suppliers in ways that they could collaborate particularly around loyalty programs and guest recognition. So if you could -- I know Glenn, you've spoken a little bit about this in the past and interviews, and I would just love some updated thoughts.

Glenn Fogel

So Meredith, so I make sure I understand your question, you'd like to know a little bit more about how in terms of recognition for the suppliers in the process? Or were you talking more for the...

Meredith Prichard Jensen

The loyalty program connectivity between some of the hotel programs to -- if they book through Muse and booking is the connector, how that kind of could play out over time because everything is moving so quickly.

Glenn Fogel

It is. It absolutely is. And that's one of those interesting questions in terms of networks and how do you create a loyalty program, so you have more and more people who want to participate in it gives more value. We all know the value of a network and the more nodes you have, the exponential increase in the value of that network. So absolutely talking with hoteliers, talking with every travel player and non hotelier players, non-travel players, people outside the travel ecosystem. If you're out ways again in these types of late programs, you can actually, though, give more value to both the person is participating in the traveler and anyone who's on the other side supplying some type of service or product. We absolutely believe that's an important part of helping build out and ensure that the Genius program remains one of the most valuable programs there is and the reason people will want to come.

And again, I don't want to give away too much of what we're building down the road, but we absolutely understand the need to continue to provide more value to both sides of that network. Is that helpful?

Meredith Prichard Jensen

Yes.

Glenn Fogel

Thank you. Well, I guess that was our last question. So let me conclude. First, as always, I want to thank our employees, the dedication and strong execution. I thank our shareholders for the continued support and of course, I've got to thank the travelers and the partners who place their trust in us every day. I and we, together, we are so excited about the role AI is going to play in travel. And I'm absolutely encouraged by the progress we are making across our strategic priorities. Look, we're going to continue to navigate this near-term uncertainty with the discipline we've always had, and we're going to be investing thoughtfully in the opportunities ahead, our people and the capabilities we continue to develop gives us the confidence in our ability to continue to play a leading role in shaping the future of travel and delivering lasting value for our shareholders. Thank you very much, and good night.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation, and you may now disconnect.