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November 11, 2024

Norwalk-based Booking Holdings plans workforce reduction amid higher operating costs

Contributed Booking.com's campus in Amsterdam.
By Andrew Larson

Norwalk-based Booking Holdings Inc. has announced a workforce reduction and other cost-saving measures, the company said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The announcement on Friday came days after Booking Holdings said in its third-quarter report that its operating expenses had increased nearly 14%.

Booking Holdings is a Fortune 500 company that owns several online travel services, including Booking.com, Priceline.com, Kayak and OpenTable.

A spokesperson said Monday morning that Booking.com – the company’s largest brand – is “reviewing its organizational structure to ensure the company remains agile in a very competitive industry and keeps driving customer-centered innovation at pace.”

Booking Holdings reported on Oct. 30 a third-quarter profit of $2.5 billion, which was flat compared with the same quarter in 2023. Revenue increased 9% from the prior-year quarter, to $8 billion in the third-quarter of 2024.

Meantime, Booking Holdings’ operating expenses increased from $4.2 billion in the third-quarter of 2023 to $4.8 billion in the third-quarter of 2024.

During an earnings call, Chief Financial Officer Ewout Lucien Steenbergen said Booking Holdings’ headcount increased 13% as of the third-quarter of 2023. Since then, the company has “tremendously slowed” hiring, with its current year-over-year headcount up about 3%. 

“So clearly, we are being more efficient, and we are very careful with hiring,” Steenbergen said.

According to the SEC filing, Booking Holdings’ organizational changes will also include modernizing processes and systems, optimizing procurement and seeking real estate savings.

“We believe these efforts will improve operating expense efficiency, increase organizational agility, free up resources that can be reinvested into further improving our offering to both travelers and partners, and better position the company for the long term,” the filing states.

The spokesperson said Booking Holdings is in the early-stages of the process and no decisions have been made, but the workforce reduction will be “part of a broader transformational program aimed at creating greater opportunities for innovation, improving efficiency and strengthening our long-term financial position.”

According to its 2023 annual report, Bookings Holdings had about 23,600 employees.

In 2022, Booking Holdings acquired a B2B distributor of hotel rooms, Dallas-based Getaroom, from a private equity firm for $1.2 billion.

In August 2020, Booking Holdings said it planned to lay off 25% of its global workforce as a result of the downturn in travel demand caused by Covid-19.

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