Trivago CFO Talks Summer Travel

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Look, maybe that pinching in the middle at the moment, Paul, is exactly what we might see reflected when you're all thinking about a vacation at the moment, where are you putting.

Your bang for your buck? Is it about experiences?

Are you still going for the ultry luxury holiday and hotel or are you trading down a little bit. We've got the perfect person to be asking this at the moment. Robin Harris is with us, the CFO of Trevago. Look, it is the number one global hotel search platform and many people, seventy one million in fact, Americans are meant to be hitting the road this Fourth of July weekend, Robin, according to Triple A, how many of them are still really spoiling themselves on a hotel or are they trading down?

Hi? Great to be speaking to you. What we see on external data is that this year five percent more Americans are traveling on the fourth of July, and we look at Google there we also see higher travel demand. And our internal data shows that the top destinations this year are the same top destinations that we saw in twenty three. And however, the prices went up, sometimes significantly. So the top destinations are Number one is Las Vegas, Number two is a Mortle Beach, and the third one

I can tell a lot of people going to the Jersey Shore as well, judging by the beach yesterday. Robin is globally speaking, is travel these days? Is it mostly within one's own country? Or where are we in terms of international travels?

Yeah, so most of the Americans travel within America, so and so most of the travel and we also see this on other platforms internationally that the domestic travel is strongest. But of course you also have many Americans that go to Mexico, that go to Italy or to Spain or to Turkey also strong, but most of them are travel busin the US.

How much have people been trying to navigate the inflationary pressure of Look, as someone who has kids, I started to use an Airbnb experience, or at least some sort of home that I was going to go and stay in rather than a hotel purely because I needed a microwave. I needed to be like doing milk, this, that and the other. I need to be cooking kids food that I didn't want to spend an absolute fortune on.

But how much has that.

Factored into what people are looking to and for from a hotel experience.

How much are we starting to see some of the cleaning fees you see within an Airbnb fight back and people now wanting the hotel experience. What do you see.

Rom So Tivago is pretty much focused on hotel, So we offer over five million hotels and other accommodations which I'm also apartments, so, but we are pretty much focused on hotel and so we see a huge opportunity even in the hotel segment, and we see that the demand is strong for people searching for hotels and going to hotels.

Robin talk to us about business travel.

Where are we in terms of maybe pre pandemic levels in terms of business travel seems to come back. I'm just not sure where we are.

Oh so we are already back, I think. So when we look at the seasonality and when we look into the demand for this summer's it's high, so and it's compared to COVID it's I think even higher. So the demand at Selsy when you look into the market at Selsy. So this looks all where we stable and solid.

What's interesting Roman is the US dollar has been doing mighty fine versus basically everything else of late. And I would have thought that you mentioned Turkey, you mentioned Europe, Spain, I know many going to Portugal for example, people looking at Japan finally because it seems to be so much more economical from an FXS perspective. Has that in any way changed the way in which a US traveler is looking and opportunities to go globally travel rather than keep it domestic.

So we see that the arm that the Americans that they stay more in the US and go less abroad. So the domestic trouble has been increasing. And this is also a trend that we see that or we observe that that people go more for mid star hotels instead of high high class hotels.

Robin, if I wanted to make a last minute decision and go over to Parish for the Olympics, can you get mer room? And how much do I have to pay for it?

Yeah?

So this might be expensive? Yeah, of course we will. We will find a good offer for you. And it makes sense probably to go a little bit out of the top destinations now because it's what we see. Travel trends are that whenever there are sporting events or even concerts, big concerts, that prices stow up a lot. So therefore it might make sense to go a little bit outside.

I mean, it was cheaper to basically fly over from America, take your family to Europe watch Swift there, yes, than to watch it in America. Exactly, Robin, I'm really interested in Travago in and of itself because you are bringing

So when you compare today with and pre COVID, you can see that there is more price disparity, and you can see that there are more different rates across the hotels are out there, so therefore it still makes a lot of sense to compare prices, and it makes even more sense than pre COVID so and I mean that's the market here. You see, there are different prices and that makes sense to compare it, and that's what we are doing.

Robert. Are all the hotel chains notable, I mean even the high ends ones. Are they open to doing business with the Travagos of the world.

Yes, we have. Most of the big global hotel brands are integrated and our partners and if you go to Trivago you can also see the direct prices from the big Koto chains.

All right, Robin Harris, thank you so much for joining us. Robert Harris, Travago c FO, talk to us about that travel