We have many accommodation owners - people who own small hotels, villas and bungalows - and the digital economy has opened up a world of possibility for these business owners. Now, they can sell to and communicate with people around the world, and where Booking.com comes in is to help these accommodation owners adapt to the digital world.
There are a lot of threats out there. Amazon can enter the travel market. Google could enter the accommodation space. But that is not something that we actively focus on.
The move to Internet-enable travel booking is creating massive convenience, efficiency, and savings for consumers.
Booking travel is not like shopping or groceries or booking a restaurant. It's much less frequent, so understanding what works just takes a lot more time.
We are a bottom-up culture, and we need a communications platform that can facilitate that.
We have built out the diversity of our product teams, and we saw the caliber of our testing and experimentation improve significantly.
From our earliest days, Booking.com has been deploying technology to help strip the friction out of travel.
Japan is a very important market for us and has grown remarkably as one of the most popular travel destinations in the world.
Understand tipping culture. Whereas Americans tip 15-20% when dining out, most European countries don't tip, as a service charge is typically included in the bill. Make sure you're not over-tipping by doing research before traveling.
Recognizing that female participation in technology is lower than it should be, we are committed to bolstering female tech talent, eliminating obstacles and challenges they face, and fostering diversity.
One in five of our customers books for business. But it's scaling very fast. As a result, we have tools for medium or small-sized companies to allow them set their price and give basic reporting functionality.
A long time ago, we had to build interfaces to connect with other companies, and I thought that was a great idea. The company had to pay a lot of money to build it and basically launched it, but our whole operating system almost broke. So, we couldn't continue it. In the end, I had to go on the train to Paris to explain that I had spent millions.
If firms were made to hire according to quotas, it might optimize the percentage of women in the industry, but that doesn't necessarily translate into more quality products for the customer.
As a company powered by technology and digital innovation, Booking.com believes strongly in ensuring equal access and opportunity for all within the technology sector.
There is a misperception among job seekers that opportunities for women in tech exist only for those with coding or engineering experience. To be sure, technology firms do need women with these skills, but they also need women with expertise in other areas, like marketing and finance.
On the one hand, you have markets such as Singapore and Thailand, with an extremely strong inbound booker market and a well-developed tourism industry. You also have markets that are just opening up to tourists, like Myanmar, that have massive growth potential and then markets that are extremely fragmented within themselves such as Indonesia.
Both business and leisure travellers are enjoying unprecedented levels of choice.
