Booking Holdings focuses on payment platform, connected trip and U.S. growth as 2020 revenue drops 55%
Despite both revenue and bookings dropping more sharply in Q4 of 2020 than in the prior quarter, Booking Holdings president and CEO Glenn Fogel focused on the positive to open his call sharing the results with analysts.
Noting that 2020 brought the "biggest disruption to modern global travel the world has ever seen," Fogel continues: "However, travelers still booked 355 million room nights through our platforms during 2020, and we remained profitable by generating approximately $880 million in adjusted EBITDA. Delivering these results during this unprecedented year and unpredictable year is a credit to our team's relentless efforts to deliver the best value and service to our travel customers and to our supply partners while all the time remaining incredibly focused on operating efficiently."
Considering those full-year 2020 figures in relation to 2019, of course, paints a less rosy picture. Room nights dropped nearly 58% - down from 844 million in the prior year - and adjusted EBITDA dropped 85%.
Gross travel bookings for the year were valued at $35.4 billion, a 63% decrease compared to 2019, and total revenues in 2020 were $6.8 billion, a 55% decrease from the prior year.
Fourth quarter results were also noticeably down compared to Q3 of 2020 - although less sharply than expected, says Fogel.
