00:00Steve, I'm really interested that you're seeing that demand is surging,
00:03but actually price is pulling back a little bit, particularly on flights.
00:06Yeah, it's an interesting story.
00:08And by the way, this is the third year Kayak has partnered with Bloomberg
00:10on teasing out travel trends for the next year.
00:13So thanks for that.
00:15Yeah, it's an interesting picture.
00:16Travel demand in terms of flights is up 9% on Kayak, but fares are down.
00:21So domestic fares, and you may have seen this, Romain,
00:23when you were booking your trip to go skiing, are down 3% year over year.
00:27Your flights to international destinations are down 10%.
00:30So it's a good time to get away.
00:34Romain's not going internationally, though.
00:36So where should people be going?
00:39Where are people dialing up?
00:40Where are people leaning in and looking for opportunities?
00:43I'm hearing so much about Eastern Europe at the moment, in particular.
00:46I mean, a lot of my sister-in-laws just hid over there at the moment.
00:49They, of course, are European-based, but they had a great time.
00:52Yeah, it's funny.
00:53The trends are very solid to go to Eastern Europe versus the classics that are out there.
00:59And we think what's driving that is a few factors.
01:02People want to go to the new gems versus the classics.
01:06Not only is it more convenient to get there than ever before and less crowded,
01:11but you're also getting a lot more value for your money, particularly on luxury hotels.
01:16So $500 goes a lot further in Sofia or Prague than it does in Paris, France, obviously.
01:23And then we also see two other trends that are pretty interesting.
01:26One is sports and concerts are driving people to go places that they perhaps didn't contemplate before.
01:36And then ecotourism.
01:37So despite the lull in sustainable travel that some folks have speculated about,
01:41people still want to go see landscapes and animals that might not be around in 10 to 15 years from now.
01:46Okay.
01:47That's a little dark.
01:48That's depressing.
01:50See, you've got to help me out, though.
01:52You know, I'm kind of the planner in our family when it comes.
01:56Not kind of.
01:56I am the planner in our family when it comes to vacation.
01:58Anyone knows who's tried to plan a vacation, particularly for a big family, it's a pain in the butt.
02:03I mean, it takes forever.
02:04It's trying to get everybody on the same page, coordinate all the flights, everything else here.
02:08Talk a little bit about specifically what Kayak does, if at all, to kind of try to make that process a little easier.
02:15I mean, this is, as I'm told by Caroline Hyde, this has been the year of AI.
02:20Is that actually going to help me?
02:21Like, the next time I plan a big trip, am I going to have to spend a lot less time?
02:25Absolutely.
02:25It's going to help you.
02:26And at Kayak, we've got AI sprinkled throughout everything we do.
02:30But, you know, in a nutshell, I've given the same advice to people for 15 to 20 years.
02:34If you're trying to save money on flights and you're trying to get a lot of people to agree on a destination, do three things.
02:41The first one is be flexible on your dates because that way you've got more opportunities to find deals.
02:46The second is consider multiple airports.
02:49So not just LaGuardia, New York, but also JFK, White Plains, Newark, heck, even Hartford.
02:55And then the third thing to do is set price alerts so that you don't always have to go back to Kayak or any other site anytime you're looking for a flight.
03:04Just tell us what you're looking for in broad terms, you know, these kind of destinations, this date range, this price point.
03:11And we'll do that automatically for you and send you price alerts, which is a great service.
03:16But AI will definitely help all of that, too.
03:18Yeah, I am curious.
03:19And by the way, just as a side note, White Plains, probably the best kept secret in the tri-state area.
03:23Don't tell anyone.
03:25I'm a little upset you actually put that out there.
03:27But in all seriousness, though, it gets to the idea, too, that as we start to see the evolution of this technology,
03:33I am curious as to whether you think that's going to drive more business or is it just going to basically be the same customers spending the same amount of money,
03:40but just with a little bit more ease in booking?
03:43Well, I think it will actually create and reduce – well, it will create more opportunities to reduce friction in the booking path and make it more convenient to travel.
03:52And usually when you do that, you stimulate demand and you actually stimulate more usage of the product, right, by taking friction out.
03:59So I think AI will make it easier to contemplate strange trips or complex trips, multiple destinations, long time frames, lots of different passenger types.
04:09It will help in terms of making the booking so that conversion rates improve.
04:15And then where I think AI will really help is in flight disruptions, travel disruptions, changes in your plans.
04:22Instead of having five different people to call, you can actually do a lot of this in an automatic fashion with the Gentic AI.
04:28And that's where I think a lot of us in the industry, Kayak in particular, are focused on.
04:33What's interesting is you hear about sort of the anti-AI bet, the idea that we're all either going to be so productive or only be working four days a week,
04:42or we'll all be so bored of just chatting to our chatbot that we actually want real experiences with real people.
04:48And to that point, the idea that we're going out and going to sports events, that we're going to music events and we're spending around that,
04:54that does take a little bit of extra money.
04:56Do you have a sense from the macroeconomy that this is all playing to the hymn sheet that you see in terms of demand surging in 2026?
05:04Or is it a certain select few who are able to be spending right now?
05:08Well, look, I'll be the first to admit, as well as everyone else in the industry, that travel is discretionary good.
05:14It's not like groceries.
05:15You don't need to have travel.
05:17But it's also something that people just dream about.
05:19You know, if you're involved in your day-to-day drudgery, it's really nice to know, even in six months, that you've got someplace special to go to.
05:28So I think the consumption for travel products and services will still be there.
05:32But what is changing is people's, you know, spending power is a client.
05:36So instead of going to Europe, perhaps, for some folks where the average fare is about $1,000,
05:41you'll stay local in the U.S. where the average fare is around $350 to $400.
05:46So I think people are shifting where they're going and how much they're spending to get more dollars or more value for the dollars they spend.
05:55Hey, Steve, always appreciate it.
05:56And before we let you go, you've got to let us know, what is your bucket list destination, that one place you haven't been to?
06:02Yeah, so I've never been to Croatia.
06:04It's one of our trending destinations.
06:05So I'm going to eat the kayak dog food, and I'm going to Croatia in June of 2026.
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