Booking Holdings Boosts Discounting to Capture Bigger Share of Travel Budgets
Skift Take
Booking is placing a new emphasis on discounting versus its traditional reliance mostly on marketing. Expect more fintech and loyalty offerings.
Booking Holdings estimates that its Booking.com unit commands about 25 percent of its customers' overall travel budgets on average, and it is using everything from discounting and a nascent introduction of fintech-oriented products to capture a larger share of their wallets.
In fact, while the company expects its marketing spending as a percentage of gross bookings to remain stable in 2022, an increase in "merchandising," — namely discounting and providing various incentives to high-value customers — is among the factors that will negatively impact its "take rate," or commissions this year.
The other reasons its take rate is projected to fall to the mid-14 percent range, which is lower than in 2019 and less than it projected s
