NORWALK, CT—Booking Holdings Inc., for the first quarter of 2020, reported gross travel bookings of $12.4 billion, a decrease of 51% over a year ago (approximately 50% on a constant-currency basis). Room nights booked in the first quarter decreased 43% year-over-year (YOY). The company’s results have been significantly and negatively impacted due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic conditions and government orders.
“While our Q1 reported room nights declined 43% year-over-year, we did not see the virus’ full negative force on our business until mid-to-late March,” said Glenn Fogel, CEO/president of Booking Holdings. “So, the 43% decline does not truly reflect the state of our business, nor the travel industry today. In March, our reported room nights declined over 100%, meaning we received more cancellations during that month than new bookings. Looking at things in a different way, our newly booked room nights, which exclude the number of cancellations, were down over 60% YOY in March, and down 85% in April. This gives you a clear indication of how much our business is currently impacted by this crisis.”
Booking Holdings’ Q1 total revenues were $2.3 billion, a 19% decrease from the prior year (approximately 17% on a constant-currency basis). The company reported a net loss of $699 million, compared with net income in the first quarter of 2019 of $765 million, which includes an unrealized loss of $307 million and an unrealized gain of $451 million, respectively, on marketable equity securities. Additionally, the net loss includes impairments of $489 million for OpenTable and KAYAK goodwill and $100 million for an investment in equity securities. The Q1 net loss was $17.01 per diluted share, compared with net income of $16.85 per diluted share in the prior year.
Non-GAAP net income in the first quarter was $156 million, a 69% decrease vs. the prior year. Non-GAAP net income was $3.77 per diluted share, a 66% decrease YOY. Non-GAAP net income includes adjustments to exclude net unrealized gains or losses on marketable equity securities in both periods, goodwill and investment impairments and foreign currency losses on Euro-denominated debt that was not designated as a hedging instrument in the first quarter of 2020. Adjusted EBITDA was $290 million, a 60% decrease vs. a year ago.
Looking forward, Fogel said, “I am confident that this crisis will eventually end and people will travel again. Travel is fundamental to who we are. While it may take some time to return to pre-COVID-19 levels, we will get there eventually, and we expect travel to grow thereafter. We will be working with our travel partners to create plans to stimulate travelers to book again once this crisis is behind us. We know how critical it will be to bring demand to our supply partners in a cost-effective way.”
He continued, “We have now begun to execute our optimized plan in which we adapt to the new reality that assumes it will likely be years, not quarters, before we witness a full recovery of global travel demand. We believe that either a vaccine or an effective treatment is needed before people will fully be comfortable in traveling the way they did before the virus pandemic started.”
