AI impact: How technology and UX innovation impacts the travel industry

Bernie, this is an interesting story only because travel seems like one of those intuitively, intuitively one of those places that can be at least enhanced with artificial intelligence. What companies are at play when it comes to AI and travel? Yeah, definitely. Thanks, Tom. So like just what Julia said, you have Expedia, you have Booking and with with Airbnb, that's a big, big topic of discussion right now in their ability to move beyond the core. We've seen, you know, Airbnb's double the size that they were pre pandemic and their growth is starting to look a lot, a lot more like expedient booking. And I think that's one of the reasons why Brian Chesky is so focused on what's the, what's the next phase of the company. And, and it's this AIOTA that he appears to be so focused on. What exactly is the user interface like when it comes to the acceptability for customers out there? Do do you think that there is a level of at least comfort among people like me, consumers who want to book their travel but can do so via a bot or some kind of a generative AI feature? Yeah, Well, I think taking a big step back, it does take, you know what Julie mentioned piece, it does take a lot of time to to book your trip. Priceline has a stat out there that takes consumer 16 hours to book a trip. And that's the reason why we think travelers are so excited about this new technology. There was a a survey from booking of 27,000 travelers that's in 56%. So they want to use generative AI for an upcoming trip. So I think right now the products that we're seeing in the wild are still a little bit buggy, but I think this technology is going to be ubiquitous. There's also companies like Despegar, who's a Latin American OTA, there's Mon D, who's more of that B to B travel agent that's leveraging this technology. So yeah, again, we think this technology is going to be ubiquitous. And one interesting thing is that these companies still spend a whole lot of money on sales and marketing to drive people to their platform. So this personalization could be a reason why consumers more stick around and pick one OTA versus the, you know, zero switching cost before the OTA. I mean, the online travel agency whole industry has been at least evolved to a point where it has become ubiquitous for us. You mentioned the idea and the lag time it'll take to get up there. We, we know there are smaller companies at play, but let's talk about some of these bigger names, the Expedias, the bookings. I, I know that you cover Airbnb head on your, yourself. What exactly does it look like with regard to how far it takes or how far it will take, how long it will take for all of us to start to see these types of things become commonplace on these OTAs that you mentioned? Yeah, well, no, Priceline already has a product out there, Expedia. It's more of a beta version right now that you know. So I, you know, but what we're seeing with this technology is that, you know, don't, don't bet against in terms of speed to market in time. So I don't want to put, put an actual date out there, but would not be surprising if this is, is this is reality, you know, sooner rather than later. And I think one of the, the pieces that Julia was focused on in her piece was really the, the pre trip and, and what you know, to, to book the trip in the 16 hours it takes to do that. I think it's really interesting what could happen during the trip where let's say, you know, you have a walking tour scheduled in, in Rome and all of a sudden it's going to rain and, and you can get pinged automatically from this technology saying, hey, why don't you book a museum instead? And here's the five best museums that are close to you at this time. So I think that's another, you know, interesting product push that could be happening to that would, again, you know, significantly help the the consumer experience. And Bernie, before we let you go, we are going to come up. We're just about a week and 1/2 or so away from what is forecast by analysts to be the busiest record-breaking travel 4th of July that we've ever seen in America. What exactly does that say to you about the travel business right now and how exactly do you see it playing out for the balance of the year? Yeah, well, the, the short case on on travel has been this peak travel thesis. You know, Airbnb, again, double what they were pre pandemic, booking 70% larger pre pandemic. And this is something that people have been waiting for that to fall off. It just hasn't. And then see the, the EUR going on right now in Germany, you have the the Paris Olympics, you know, expectations for a, for a strong 4th of July travel season here as well. And so I think that's one of the reasons why you've seen, you know, Airbnb in particular for, for focusing on that stock still trading at 20 times NTM EBITDA despite growth really slowing. So I think there's the expectations that there's still, you know, upside to numbers here. I mean, we would look that instead of, you know, the upsides numbers of this is probably a, you know, high single, low double digit grower because of the because of the success they've had been driving margins. EBITDA growth is going to look a lot more like that. So you know, a low double digit EBITDA grower trading at 20 times, you know, we'd rather own a DoorDash or an or an Uber for example that you know, similar valuation but just much better growth profile in our view.