Booking Holdings Inc (BKNG) 2017 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Welcome to Booking Holdings, formerly The Priceline Group, Fourth Quarter 2017 Conference Call.

歡迎參加 Booking Holdings（前身為 Priceline Group）2017 年第四季電話會議。

Booking Holdings would like to remind everyone that this call may contain forward-looking statements, which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual results may differ materially from those expressed, implied or forecasted in any such forward-looking statements. Expressions of future goals or expectations and similar expressions reflecting something other than historical fact are intended to identify forward-looking statements. For a list of factors that could cause Booking Holdings' actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements, please refer to the safe harbor statements at the end of Booking Holdings' earnings press release as well as Booking Holdings' most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Unless required by law, Booking Holdings undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Booking Holdings 特此提醒各位，本次電話會議可能包含前瞻性陳述，這些陳述是根據 1995 年《私人證券訴訟改革法案》的安全港條款作出的。這些前瞻性陳述並非對未來績效的保證，並且受到某些難以預測的風險、不確定性和假設的影響。因此，實際結果可能與任何此類前瞻性聲明中表達、暗示或預測的結果有重大差異。表達未來目標或期望以及反映歷史事實以外的類似表達旨在識別前瞻性陳述。有關可能導致 Booking Holdings 的實際業績與前瞻性聲明中所述業績存在重大差異的因素列表，請參閱 Booking Holdings 盈利新聞稿末尾的安全港聲明以及 Booking Holdings 向美國證券交易委員會提交的最新文件。除非法律另有規定，Booking Holdings 不承擔因新資訊、未來事件或其他原因而公開更新任何前瞻性聲明的義務。

A copy of Booking Holdings' earnings press release, together with an accompanying financial and statistical supplement, is available in the For Investors section of Booking Holdings' website, www.bookingholdings.com.

Booking Holdings 的獲利新聞稿及其隨附的財務和統計補充資料可在 Booking Holdings 網站 www.bookingholdings.com 的「投資者」部分查閱。

And now I'd like to introduce Booking Holdings' speakers for this afternoon: Glenn Fogel, Daniel Finnegan and David Goulden. Go ahead, gentlemen.

現在，我謹向大家介紹今天下午 Booking Holdings 的演講嘉賓：Glenn Fogel、Daniel Finnegan 和 David Goulden。請繼續，先生們。

Thank you, and welcome to Booking Holdings' fourth quarter conference call. I am joined this afternoon by our CFO, Dan Finnegan, in what will be his final earnings call before retiring; and David Goulden, our soon-to-start CFO who I am pleased to welcome today, though his start date is March 1. David has an impressive background in financial and operational management at EMC and more recently as part of the Dell-EMC combined team. I am looking forward to working with David and know he will play an important role in the continued success of our company. David, welcome.

謝謝，歡迎參加 Booking Holdings 第四季財報電話會議。今天下午，我的財務長丹‧芬尼根將與我一同參加他退休前的最後一次財報電話會議；同時，我也很高興地歡迎即將上任的財務長大衛‧古爾登加入我們，儘管他的正式上任日期是3月1日。大衛在EMC的財務和營運管理方面擁有令人矚目的經驗，最近他更是戴爾-EMC合併團隊的一員。我期待與大衛共事，並相信他將在我們公司的持續成功中發揮重要作用。大衛，歡迎。

Thanks, Glenn. I'm very excited to join the Booking Holdings team, and I look forward to working with you and Dan and the rest of the leadership team to first dig deep into business to understand it as well as all of you do and then to help drive its future success across all of its aspects. Also, I look forward to meeting many of you on the call over the coming weeks and months.

謝謝你，格倫。我非常高興能夠加入 Booking Holdings 團隊，我期待著與您、Dan 以及其他領導團隊成員一起，首先深入了解業務，像你們一樣理解它，然後幫助推動公司在各個方面取得未來的成功。此外，我期待在接下來的幾週和幾個月與大家在電話會議上見面。

Thank you, David. I am pleased to report that Booking Holdings performed well in the fourth quarter, with worldwide accommodation reservations of 152 million room nights, which is up 17% year-over-year and exceeded the high end of our guidance range. Consolidated gross bookings were up 19% year-over-year in U.S. dollars or about 14% on a constant currency basis. Gross profit was up 22% year-over-year in U.S. dollars or about 17% on a constant currency basis and adjusted EBITDA increased 23% year-over-year to $1.1 billion.

謝謝你，大衛。我很高興地報告，Booking Holdings 在第四季度表現出色，全球住宿預訂量達到 1.52 億間夜，年增 17%，超過了我們預期範圍的上限。以美元計，綜合總預訂額年增 19%；以固定匯率計算，年增約 14%。以美元計，毛利年增 22%，以固定匯率計算成長約 17%；調整後 EBITDA 年成長 23% 至 11 億美元。

I am particularly pleased with the results of our performance marketing optimization efforts during the quarter. We raised ROIs across our pay channels, improving performance advertising efficiency while still delivering solid growth in bookings. We were also successful in driving growth through our direct channel, which is important to the long-term health of our business. And I want to specifically send out a thank you to our talented marketing teams who successfully navigated this difficult-to-predict marketplace, achieving better-than-expected results during the quarter. As we've said in the past, our efforts to drive greater efficiency in this complex and dynamic marketplace will produce strategic and financial benefits, but we still expect to face continuing long-term pressure in this area.

我對我們本季在效果行銷優化方面所取得的成果感到特別滿意。我們提高了各個付費管道的投資報酬率，提高了效果廣告效率，同時預訂量也實現了穩健成長。我們也成功地透過直銷管道推動了業務成長，這對我們業務的長期健康發展至關重要。我還要特別感謝我們才華橫溢的行銷團隊，他們成功地應對了這個難以預測的市場，並在本季度取得了超乎預期的業績。正如我們過去所說，我們為提高這個複雜多變的市場效率所做的努力將帶來策略和財務上的收益，但我們仍然預計在這個領域將面臨持續的長期壓力。

Let me now briefly highlight a few points about our 2017 performance. It was a good year for the company. We grew our room nights by 21%, which represents over 116 million incremental room nights booked in the year. Performance in our key regions around the world was strong, and we believe we achieved market share gains in some of our major geographies, such as the United States. Moreover, we combined this top line growth with EBITDA growth of approximately 18% and non-GAAP EPS growth of 17%, which was strong performance, considering we began to undertake some important investments in the second half of the year.

現在讓我簡要地重點介紹一下我們2017年的表現。對公司來說，這是個不錯的年份。我們的客房夜數增加了 21%，相當於一年內新增預訂客房夜數超過 1.16 億晚。我們在全球主要地區的業績表現強勁，我們相信我們在美國等一些主要地區實現了市場份額的成長。此外，我們將營收成長與約 18% 的 EBITDA 成長和非 GAAP EPS 成長 17% 相結合，考慮到我們在下半年開始進行一些重要投資，這是一個強勁的業績。

We made good progress on many of our key initiatives for the year. We expanded our marketplace, adding new supply and continue to be one of the world's largest accommodation platforms. Booking.com added over 470,000 properties last year and ended the year with almost 1.6 million properties on its website and mobile app. This supply diversity brings unsurpassed choice and selection for our customers with what we believe to be the best desktop and mobile tools and customer support in the industry. We also made progress growing our alternative accommodation properties to approximately 1.2 million homes, apartments and other unique places to stay on Booking.com's platform, which represents a 53% year-over-year growth rate. Booking.com has changed its property classifications into 2 categories: the first representing more traditional accommodations, including hotels, motels and resorts; and the second, encompassing alternative accommodations, including homes, apartments and other unique places to stay. We believe this new classification is more consistent with those used by other industry participants and allows for a more direct comparison of our nonhotel supplies.

今年我們在許多重點項目上都取得了良好進展。我們擴大了市場規模，增加了新的供應，並繼續保持全球最大住宿平台之一的地位。Booking.com 去年新增了超過 47 萬個房源，到年底其網站和行動應用程式上的房源總數接近 160 萬個。這種供應多樣性為我們的客戶帶來了無與倫比的選擇，我們相信我們提供的是業內最好的桌面和行動工具以及客戶支援。我們在拓展另類住宿方面也取得了進展，Booking.com 平台上的房屋、公寓和其他特色住宿場所數量已達到約 120 萬套，同比增長 53%。Booking.com 已將其房源分類改為 2 類：第一類代表更傳統的住宿，包括飯店、汽車旅館和度假村；第二類涵蓋另類住宿，包括房屋、公寓和其他獨特的住宿場所。我們認為這種新的分類方式與其他行業參與者使用的分類方式更加一致，並且可以更直接地比較我們的非飯店用品。

We began to accelerate investments to build an effective payments platform at Booking.com. This initiative, in which we are in the very early stages and expect to continue to invest in throughout 2018, is important as we expand our merchant capabilities and give our property partners and customers more flexibility with respect to payment options. We made investments building a better customer experience across many of our brands. We believe these investments should improve the quality of our customer interaction as we look to support our customers across the entire journey. We plan to continue to develop and use technology, such as AI, to drive efficiencies in this area.

我們開始加快投資，以在 Booking.com 建立一個高效的支付平台。這項計劃目前仍處於非常早期的階段，我們預計將在 2018 年繼續投資。隨著我們擴大商家能力，並為我們的物業合作夥伴和客戶提供更多支付選擇的靈活性，這項計劃非常重要。我們投入資金，致力於提升旗下許多品牌的顧客體驗。我們相信，這些投資將提升我們與客戶互動的質量，因為我們將在整個客戶旅程中為客戶提供支援。我們計劃繼續開發和使用人工智慧等技術，以提高該領域的效率。

While we are still in the early stages, we feel good about the integration of KAYAK and Momondo. The teams are working well together, and we are seeing early evidence of the benefits of the combination. We're excited to see what they can achieve in 2018 and beyond.

雖然我們仍處於早期階段，但我們對 KAYAK 和 Momondo 的整合感到滿意。各團隊合作良好，我們已經初步看到了這種合作方式帶來的益處。我們非常期待看到他們在 2018 年及以後能有怎樣的成就。

Turning to 2018. I will spend a few minutes commenting on our key strategic priorities for the year, many of which I mentioned on our Q3 earnings call. We expect to continue to aggressively expand our supply of homes, apartments and other unique places to stay. To do this, we are investing in tools to help our supply partners more efficiently onboard their properties and more effectively manage their participation in our marketplace.

展望2018年。我將花幾分鐘時間談談我們今年的主要策略重點，其中許多重點我在第三季財報電話會議上已經提到過。我們預計將繼續積極擴大房屋、公寓和其他特色住宿場所的供應量。為此，我們正在投資開發相關工具，以幫助我們的供應商合作夥伴更有效率地將其房產上線，並更有效地管理其在我們市場上的參與。

We know that our customers benefit by seeing the largest breadth of all types of accommodations. And although we believe we are a global leader in the area of homes, apartments and other unique places to stay, we recognize that, in some geographies, our abilities in this area are not as well known as in other geographies. And we are determined to make sure that customers in all geographies are aware of our excellent offers in this area.

我們知道，讓客戶看到最廣泛的各種類型的住宿選擇，對客戶是有益的。雖然我們相信我們在住宅、公寓和其他獨特住宿場所領域是全球領導者，但我們也意​​識到，在某些地區，我們在這一領域的能力並不像在其他地區那樣廣為人知。我們決心確保世界各地的客戶都能了解我們在這一領域提供的優質服務。

Providing holistic, frictionless travel for our customers remains a long-term goal, and we are making investments this year to help us achieve this vision. Providing an integrated ground transportation offering is a part of this holistic travel concept. Rentalcars.com and Booking.com have recently started working together more closely to provide Bookings customers with an airport ground transportation offering. We believe this is a first step to bring ground transportation offerings to Booking.com and leverage our scale across our brands to bring great services to our customers.

為我們的客戶提供全面、順暢的旅行體驗仍然是我們的長期目標，今年我們將進行投資以實現這一願景。提供一體化的地面交通服務是這整體旅行概念的一部分。Rentalcars.com 和 Booking.com 最近開始更緊密合作，為 Booking 的客戶提供機場地面交通服務。我們相信這是將地面交通服務引入 Booking.com 的第一步，我們將利用旗下各品牌的規模優勢，為我們的客戶提供優質服務。

We're experimenting with providing in-destination experiences and currently have tests running in multiple markets. Whether you want to visit a museum or book a tour, Booking.com wants its mobile app to eventually become the center of your entire travel experience. It is extremely early days for us, but we are excited about the long-term potential in this area.

我們正在嘗試提供目的地體驗，目前正在多個市場進行測試。無論您是想參觀博物館還是預訂旅遊行程，Booking.com 都希望其行動應用程式最終成為您整個旅行體驗的中心。對我們來說，現在還處於非常早期的階段，但我們對這個領域的長期潛力感到興奮。

Finally, we will look to continue our optimization efforts in our pay channels with the goal of properly balancing ROI discipline and top line growth. We continuously evaluate each channel and support those that deliver appropriate ROIs, treat our conversion-friendly product displays fairly and offer a superior consumer experience, with the overall goal of building our direct traffic over time. If successful, these optimization efforts should produce benefits over the long run. Also, brand marketing remains an important investment as we seek to not only increase our share of direct traffic, but also enhance our effectiveness in the pay channels. We plan to continue to experiment with the right mix of marketing spend and geographic focus to achieve our long-term goals.

最後，我們將持續優化付費管道，目標是在投資報酬率和營收成長之間取得適當的平衡。我們不斷評估每個管道，並支持那些能夠帶來適當投資回報率、公平對待我們易於轉化的產品展示、並提供卓越消費者體驗的管道，最終目標是隨著時間的推移增加我們的直接流量。如果成功，這些優化措施應該會在長期內產生效益。此外，品牌行銷仍然是一項重要的投資，因為我們不僅希望增加直接流量份額，還希望提高付費管道的有效性。我們計劃繼續嘗試將​​行銷支出和地理重點進行適當組合，以實現我們的長期目標。

In terms of capital return, I am proud of our track record here. We have returned about $6 billion of capital over the last 3 years, including over $1.8 billion in 2017. We believe this demonstrates our commitment to returning excess capital to our shareholders. Dan will discuss this in more detail, but the recent U.S. tax law change will enable us to access our international cash more efficiently. Our Board of Directors recently approved an incremental $8 billion share repurchase authorization. So we now have a total of $10 billion authorized for share repurchases. We expect to execute repurchases by using a programmatic and opportunistic approach that reflects our increased access to our international cash and future cash flows.

就資本回報而言，我為我們在這裡取得的成績感到自豪。過去 3 年，我們已返還約 60 億美元的資本，其中 2017 年返還超過 18 億美元。我們相信這體現了我們致力於將盈餘資本返還給股東的承諾。Dan 將會更詳細地討論這個問題，但最近美國稅法的變化將使我們能夠更有效地獲得國際現金。我們的董事會最近批准了一項新增的 80 億美元股票回購授權。因此，我們現在總共有 100 億美元的授權用於股票回購。我們預計將透過有計劃、有機會的方式執行回購，這反映了我們獲得更多國際現金和未來現金流的能力。

Now I want to provide a few quick comments on our recent name change and the rationale for doing so. The Priceline Group has evolved significantly since it was founded in 1997 as priceline.com, with a unique "name your own price" airline ticket service to become today a company with multiple travel brands. Under the Priceline Group name, we became one of the world's leading providers of online travel and related services. Today, our Amsterdam-based Booking.com brand has grown into a business of significant global scale, averaging over 1 million room nights booked per day. Booking.com drives a significant majority of our company's total operating results. We believe this name change better reflects the truly global operation that we have become today, more closely aligns our parent company name with our largest business and connects our collective brands, Booking.com, priceline.com, KAYAK, Agoda, Rentalcars.com and OpenTable, under a unified name. Booking Holdings reflects our brand's shared purpose to book services, which further our mission to help people experience the world. Today was the first day that our stock traded under the new ticker symbol, BKNG.

現在我想就我們最近的更名及其原因做幾點簡要說明。Priceline 集團自 1997 年以 priceline.com 的名義成立以來，已經發生了巨大的變化。最初，它提供獨特的「自主定價」機票服務，如今已發展成為擁有多個旅遊品牌的公司。在 Priceline Group 的名義下，我們成為了世界領先的線上旅遊及相關服務提供者之一。如今，我們總部位於阿姆斯特丹的 Booking.com 品牌已發展成為一家具有顯著全球規模的企業，平均每天預訂超過 100 萬間夜。Booking.com 為我們公司貢獻了絕大部分的經營績效。我們相信，此次更名能更好地體現我們如今已成為真正的全球性企業，使我們的母公司名稱與我們最大的業務更加緊密地聯繫在一起，並將我們的所有品牌 Booking.com、priceline.com、KAYAK、Agoda、Rentalcars.com 和 OpenTable 統一到一個名稱之下。Booking Holdings體現了我們品牌共同的宗旨—預訂服務，從而進一步推進我們幫助人們體驗世界的使命。今天是我們股票以新股票代號 BKNG 進行交易的第一天。

Finally, I want to say thank you to our outgoing CFO, Dan Finnegan. It is hard to overstate the role Dan has played in his almost 14-year career here at the company. Since he started with us in 2004, Dan's leadership and guidance had been an important part of the success we have witnessed during his time here. I and everyone associated with Booking Holdings wish him well in his retirement.

最後，我要感謝即將離任的財務長丹‧芬尼根。丹在公司近 14 年的職業生涯中發揮的作用怎麼強調都不為過。自 2004 年加入我們以來，丹的領導和指導是我們在他任職期間所取得的成功的重要組成部分。我和Booking Holdings的所有員工都祝福他退休生活一切順利。

With that, I will turn it over to you, Dan.

那麼，我就把接力棒交給你了，丹。

Thanks, Glenn. Let me start by welcoming David onboard. I'm happy we have found such a talented person to step into the role, and I look forward to us working together to achieve a smooth transition.

謝謝你，格倫。首先，歡迎大衛加入我們。我很高興我們找到了這樣一位才華橫溢的人來擔任這個職位，我期待著與他/她共同努力，實現平穩過渡。

Now to the fourth quarter. I'll discuss operating results and cash flows for the quarter and then provide guidance for the first quarter of 2018. All growth rates referenced in my comments are relative to the prior year comparable period, unless otherwise indicated.

現在進入第四節。我將討論本季的經營業績和現金流，然後對 2018 年第一季的業績進行展望。除非另有說明，否則我評論中提到的所有成長率均相對於去年同期。

Our non-GAAP financial results and forecasts include stock-based compensation and are reconciled to our GAAP results in our earnings release. In early November, when we gave guidance for Q4, we talked about a recent change we had made to optimize ROIs in our performance advertising channels. The Booking.com team did a superb job of executing this strategy, delivering performance advertising efficiency and gross bookings growth that exceeded our forecast. The strong gross bookings performance also benefited gross profit for the quarter. The result was top and bottom line performance that substantially exceeded our guidance and FactSet analyst expectations.

我們的非GAAP財務業績和預測包括股票選擇權激勵，並在我們的獲利報告中與GAAP業績進行了核對。11 月初，我們在發布第四季度業績指引時，談到了我們最近為優化效果廣告管道的投資回報率而做出的一項改變。Booking.com 團隊出色地執行了這項策略，實現了效果廣告效率和總預訂量成長，都超出了我們的預期。強勁的總預訂量表現也提振了本季的毛利。最終的營收和利潤均大幅超出了我們的預期和FactSet分析師的預期。

Room nights booked in Q4 grew by 17%, decelerating modestly on a sequential basis despite a very difficult prior year comp and our ROI optimization strategy. Rental car day reservations grew by 5%, consistent with the Q3 growth rate. Average daily rates for accommodations, or ADRs, were down about 1% for Q4 versus prior year on a constant currency basis for the consolidated group, which was consistent with our forecast.

第四季客房預訂量增加了 17%，儘管去年同期比較基數很高，而且我們採取了投資回報率優化策略，但環比增速略有放緩。租車日預訂量成長了 5%，與第三季成長率一致。第四季度，集團綜合住宿平均每日價格（ADR）以固定匯率計算比去年同期下降約 1%，這與我們的預測一致。

Foreign exchange rates favorably impacted growth rates expressed in U.S. dollars for our Q4 results as compared to prior year. Q4 gross bookings grew by 19% expressed in U.S. dollars and grew by about 14% on a constant currency basis. Consolidated gross profit for the fourth quarter was $2.8 billion and grew by 22% in U.S. dollars and by about 17% on a constant currency basis. Gross profit includes $37 million from our acquisition of the Momondo Group, which we closed on July 24, 2017. Our international-based operations generated a gross profit of approximately $2.4 billion, which grew by 23% in U.S. dollars and by about 17% on a constant currency basis.

與上年同期相比，外匯匯率對我們以美元計價的第四季業績成長率產生了有利影響。第四季總預訂額以美元計算增長了 19%，按固定匯率計算增長了約 14%。第四季綜合毛利為 28 億美元，以美元計算成長 22%，以固定匯率計算成長約 17%。毛利包括我們於 2017 年 7 月 24 日完成的對 Momondo 集團的收購所得的 3,700 萬美元。我們的國際業務創造了約 24 億美元的毛利，以美元計算增長了 23%，以固定匯率計算增長了約 17%。

Gross profit for our U.S.-based operations amounted to $337 million, which grew about 15% compared to the prior year, including the benefit of a $12 million accrual reversal based upon a favorable hotel occupancy tax litigation ruling.

我們在美國的業務毛利達到 3.37 億美元，比上一年增長了約 15%，其中包括因酒店入住稅訴訟裁決而獲得的 1200 萬美元應計利潤衝回。

Advertising and other revenue, which is mainly comprised of nonintercompany revenues for KAYAK and OpenTable, grew by 29% in Q4 compared to the prior year, including revenue from Momondo.

廣告和其他收入（主要包括 KAYAK 和 OpenTable 的非公司間收入）在第四季度比去年同期增長了 29%，其中包括 Momondo 的收入。

GAAP operating income grew by 25% and GAAP operating margins increased by 89 bps compared to Q4 last year. Operating margin performance was substantially better than our forecast due mainly to gross profit growth and performance marketing efficiency that exceeded forecast. Nonadvertising OpEx expenses pressured year-over-year margins but were favorable to forecast due to the phasing of expenses.

與去年第四季相比，GAAP 營業收入成長了 25%，GAAP 營業利潤率提高了 89 個基點。營業利益率表現遠超預期，主要原因是毛利成長和績效行銷效率都超乎預期。非廣告營運支出對年比利潤率造成了壓力，但由於支出分階段進行，因此預測結果較為樂觀。

We increased our investment in brand advertising by 108% or $44 million in Q4 to build brand awareness and drive traffic directly to our websites. Adjusted EBITDA for Q4 amounted to about $1.1 billion, which exceeded the top end of our guidance range of $910 million and grew by 23% versus prior year.

第四季度，我們將品牌廣告投入增加了 108%，即 4,400 萬美元，以提升品牌知名度並直接為我們的網站引流。第四季調整後 EBITDA 約為 11 億美元，超過了我們先前 9.1 億美元的預期上限，比去年同期成長了 23%。

GAAP net loss amounted to $555 million or $11.41 per share, including $1.3 billion of provisional net income tax expense related to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, comprised of a $1.6 billion deemed repatriation tax on our accumulated international earnings, including state and local taxes and international withholding taxes, partly offset by a $217 million income tax benefit from revaluing our net deferred tax liabilities from 35% to the new statutory rate of 21%.

GAAP淨虧損達5.55億美元，即每股虧損11.41美元，其中包括與《減稅與就業法案》相關的13億美元暫定淨所得稅支出，其中包括對我們累計國際收益徵收的16億美元視同匯回稅，包括州和地方稅以及國際預提稅，部分被淨遞延所得稅將淨遞延所得稅從32%所抵銷2%2%的收入中所抵稅所得的收入22%重新2%。

Non-GAAP fully diluted net income per share, which excludes the onetime tax expense impact from the U.S. Tax Act, was $16.86, up 19% versus the prior year, exceeding our guidance for the quarter and FactSet consensus of $14.12.

不計美國稅法帶來的一次性稅收支出影響的非GAAP完全稀釋每股淨收益為16.86美元，比上年同期增長19%，超過了我們對本季度的預期以及FactSet一致預期的14.12美元。

In terms of cash flow, full year 2017 operating cash flow amounted to $4.7 billion and grew by 17%. We returned about $700 million during the fourth quarter and about $1.8 billion for the full year 2017 to our shareholders through share buybacks. Since December 31 through yesterday, we have spent an additional $380 million to purchase about 200,000 shares. We also intend to spend about $700 million in Q1 based upon yesterday's closing stock price to settle the conversion premium on our 1% convertible bonds that mature in March using cash, which beneficially impacts our fully diluted share count going forward.

就現金流而言，2017 年全年營運現金流達 47 億美元，成長了 17%。我們在第四季透過股票回購向股東返還了約 7 億美元，2017 年全年透過股票回購向股東返還了約 18 億美元。從 12 月 31 日到昨天，我們又花了 3.8 億美元購買了約 20 萬股股票。我們還計劃在第一季根據昨天的收盤股價支出約 7 億美元，以現金結算 3 月份到期的 1% 可轉換債券的轉換溢價，這將對我們未來的完全稀釋股份數量產生有利影響。

2017 full year free cash flow amounted to almost $4.4 billion, growing by 18%. About 35% of our full year gross profit converted to free cash flow, which is a function of attractive operating margins and capital efficiency for our business.

2017 年全年自由現金流接近 44 億美元，成長 18%。我們全年毛利的約 35% 轉化為自由現金流，這得益於我們業務具有吸引力的營業利潤率和資本效率。

Our cash and investments amounted to $17.8 billion at year-end. The Tax Act allows us to use this balance and future international cash flows in the U.S. with no additional U.S. federal tax expense due on repatriation beyond the onetime deemed repatriation tax that I just mentioned. This deemed repatriation tax liability that we recorded in Q4 amounting to $1.3 billion, net of about $200 million of U.S. NOLs that we expect to utilize to reduce the tax due, is payable over 8 years and does not impact 2017 net cash flow from operations.

截至年底，我們的現金和投資總額為178億美元。稅法允許我們在美國使用這筆餘額和未來的國際現金流，除了我剛才提到的一次性視同匯回稅之外，匯回時無需繳納額外的美國聯邦稅款。我們在第四季度確認的這項視同匯回稅負債為 13 億美元，扣除我們預計可用於減少應繳稅款的約 2 億美元美國淨經營虧損後，將在 8 年內支付，並且不會影響 2017 年的經營淨現金流。

Before I get to guidance for Q1, I want to discuss a couple of new accounting pronouncements that will impact our financial statements for the first time in Q1 2018. First, pursuant to the new revenue recognition standard, which took effect on January 1, we will now recognize substantially all our revenue at check-in rather than at checkout, as we had in the past. We estimate that the net impact of the change in accounting standard for the full year will be immaterial. However, the impacts on our quarterly revenue are expected to be more significant.

在給出第一季業績指引之前，我想先討論幾個新的會計準則，這些準則將在 2018 年第一季首次對我們的財務報表產生影響。首先，根據 1 月 1 日生效的新收入確認準則，我們現在將在辦理入住手續時確認幾乎所有收入，而不是像過去那樣在退房時確認。我們估計，會計準則變更對全年的淨影響微乎其微。然而，預計對我們季度收入的影響會更加顯著。

A meaningful amount of travel checks in during December and checks out in January, which means that, under the new accounting standard, this revenue will be recognized each year in Q4 rather than Q1, as it was under the previous accounting standard. We have provided additional information in our earnings release to help you model the quarterly allocation of our 2018 revenue under the new revenue accounting.

12 月有大量的差旅收入入賬，1 月出賬，這意味著，根據新的會計準則，這部分收入將在每年的第四季度確認，而不是像以前的會計準則那樣在第一季度確認。我們在獲利報告中提供了更多信息，以幫助您根據新的收入會計準則模擬我們 2018 年的季度收入分配。

Also to help with the transition, our financial statement footnotes in each quarter of 2018 will show what the revenue in 2018 would have been if it were recognized at checkout, as it was in 2017. Gross bookings and other unit metrics, like room night reservations, are not impacted by the new revenue accounting.

為了幫助過渡，我們在 2018 年每個季度的財務報表附註中將顯示，如果像 2017 年那樣在結帳時確認收入，2018 年的收入將是多少。新的收入會計方法不會影響總預訂量和其他單位指標，如客房夜數預訂量。

Another impact of the new revenue accounting standard is that we will no longer report our "name your own price" revenue on a gross basis with a corresponding cost of revenue for the amount paid to the travel providers. These amounts will be reported on a net basis in revenue, which is consistent with how we record our other travel revenue.

新收入會計準則的另一個影響是，我們將不再以總額報告「自定價格」收入，也不再將支付給旅遊供應商的金額計入相應的收入成本。這些金額將以淨額計入收入，這與我們記錄其他差旅收入的方式一致。

Another accounting change taking effect in Q1 requires that unrealized gains and losses on publicly traded equity investments, like our investment in Ctrip shares, will be recorded in the income statement rather than equity starting in Q1 2018. We expect to exclude these unrealized gains and losses from our non-GAAP results because they are unpredictable and are not indicative of the core operating results of our business.

2018 年 1 月 1 日生效的另一項會計變更要求，公開交易的股權投資（例如我們對攜程股票的投資）的未實現損益將從 2018 年 1 月開始計入損益表，而不是計入權益。我們預期會將這些未實現的收益和損失從我們的非GAAP績效中剔除，因為它們是不可預測的，並且不能反映我們業務的核心經營績效。

The guidance that I'm about to provide is based on the new revenue recognition accounting that I just mentioned, which is also the basis upon which our results for Q1 will be reported. This basis is different than the previous revenue accounting basis, which we used for 2017 and upon which analyst forecasts were prepared. Year-over-year growth rates are based upon comparison to our Q1 2017 results as reported last year under the previous accounting standard. Revenue growth and margin performance is based upon comparison to prior year's Q1 gross profit due to the change from gross basis to net basis revenue reported in -- reporting in 2018 that I just mentioned. Our guidance reflects our quarter-to-date actual results and assumes that our growth rates will decelerate over the remainder of the quarter, mainly due to the size of our business and consistent with long-term trends. Our guidance also reflects a difficult prior year comp and the impact of our performance marketing optimization efforts. We also expect that Easter falling on April 1 this year will negatively impact Q1 gross bookings and room night growth slightly as we receive cancellations leading up to Easter and people start traveling towards the end of March. We estimate that Easter taking place earlier this year will benefit Q1 revenue, operating profit, EBITDA, net income and profit margins and will negatively impact those metrics in Q2, in both cases compared to the prior year. We estimate that earlier Easter will shift about $90 million of revenue on a check-in basis from Q2 into Q1 this year. Under the previous revenue accounting standard, we estimate that earlier Easter would shift about $30 million of revenue on a checkout basis from Q2 into Q1 this year.

我即將提供的指導意見是基於我剛才提到的新的收入確認會計方法，這也是我們第一季業績報告的基礎。這一基礎與我們 2017 年使用的收入會計基礎不同，分析師預測也是基於該基礎編制的。年比增速是根據我們去年按照舊會計準則報告的 2017 年第一季業績進行比較得出的。由於我剛才提到的 2018 年報告的收入方式從毛收入改為淨收入，因此收入增長和利潤率表現是基於與上年第一季毛利潤的比較。我們的業績指引反映了本季迄今的實際業績，並假設本季剩餘時間內我們的成長率將放緩，這主要是由於我們業務的規模，並且與長期趨勢一致。我們的業績指引也反映了去年同期業績不佳以及我們績效行銷優化工作的影響。我們也預計，由於今年復活節是 4 月 1 日，第一季的總預訂量和客房夜數增長將略微受到負面影響，因為我們在復活節前會收到取消預訂，而且人們會在 3 月底開始出行。我們預計，今年復活節提前到來將有利於第一季的收入、營業利潤、EBITDA、淨收入和利潤率，但將在第二季度對這些指標產生負面影響，與前一年相比，這兩種情況都會如此。我們估計，復活節提前到來將使今年第二季約 9,000 萬美元的入住收入轉移到第一季。根據先前的收入會計準則，我們估計，復活節提前到來將使今年第二季約 3,000 萬美元的結帳收入轉移到第一季。

Our Q1 forecast is based upon recent foreign exchange rates, which provide a nice tailwind to our growth rates expressed in U.S. dollars. We're forecasting booked room nights to grow by 8% to 12% and total gross bookings to grow by 14.5% to 18.5% in U.S. dollars and by 6% to 10% on a constant currency basis. Our Q1 forecast assumes that constant currency accommodation ADRs for the consolidated group will be down by about 1% compared to the prior year period. We forecast Q1 revenue to grow by 17.5% to 21.5% in U.S. dollars and by 9% to 13% on a constant currency basis compared to gross profit in 2017.

我們第一季的預測是基於近期的外匯匯率，這為我們以美元計價的成長率提供了良好的推動作用。我們預測，以美元計算，預訂客房夜數將增長 8% 至 12%，總預訂額將增長 14.5% 至 18.5%；以固定匯率計算，總預訂額將增長 6% 至 10%。我們第一季的預測假設，以固定匯率計算，合併集團的住宿平均存託憑證（ADR）將比去年同期下降約 1%。我們預測，與 2017 年的毛利相比，第一季營收（以美元計）將成長 17.5% 至 21.5%，（以固定匯率計）將成長 9% 至 13%。

GAAP operating income is expected to grow by 6% to 10% and GAAP operating margin is expected to be about 230 bps lower than prior year Q1.

GAAP 營業收入預計將成長 6% 至 10%，GAAP 營業利潤率預計將比上年第一季下降約 230 個基點。

Q1 adjusted EBITDA is expected to range between $680 million and $705 million, which, at the midpoint, is up about 9% versus prior year. We forecast that adjusted EBITDA margin will be about 235 bps lower than prior year Q1.

第一季調整後 EBITDA 預計在 6.8 億美元至 7.05 億美元之間，以中間值計算，比上年同期成長約 9%。我們預測，調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率將比去年同期下降約 235 個基點。

Our Q1 forecast assumes that our ROI optimization efforts will yield year-over-year performance marketing efficiency. The deleverage assumed in our forecast reflects the investments in brand advertising and nonadvertising operating expenses that Glenn just spoke about. These investments have a more significant margin impact in Q1 and Q2, which are quarters in which we typically earn a smaller share of our annual profits due to the normal seasonality of our business.

我們第一季的預測假設，我們的投資報酬率優化工作將帶來年比績效行銷效率的提升。我們在預測中假設的去槓桿化反映了格倫剛才提到的品牌廣告和非廣告營運費用的投資。這些投資對第一季和第二季的利潤率影響更大，而由於我們業務的正常季節性，這兩個季度我們通常獲得的年度利潤份額較小。

Although we are not giving detailed guidance beyond Q1, we do expect deleverage in nonadvertising OpEx and brand advertising throughout 2018 but diminishing in the second half as we lap investments made last year. We assume that operating margins will benefit from increased performance marketing efficiency until we anniversary the optimization efforts that started in Q3 last year.

雖然我們沒有給出第一季之後的詳細指導，但我們預計 2018 年全年非廣告營運支出和品牌廣告的槓桿率將下降，但隨著我們收回去年的投資，下半年槓桿率將下降。我們預計，隨著去年第三季開始的優化工作取得週年紀念，營運利潤率將受益於績效行銷效率的提升。

We forecast GAAP EPS between $9.05 to $9.45 per share for Q1, which, at the midpoint, is up about 2% versus prior year. Our EPS guidance assumes a fully diluted share count of about 49.2 million shares, which reflects the beneficial impact of the common stock repurchases we have made to date and settlement of our maturing convertible bonds and cash on March 15. Our GAAP EPS guidance for Q1 assumes a tax rate of 20% compared to the prior year tax rate of 14%, which included nonrecurring discrete items that lowered the rate by about 2 percentage points. The increase in the 2018 forecasted tax rates reflect our best estimate of our tax expense under the U.S. Tax Act, estimated state and local taxes on our international earnings and an increase in the Innovation Box Tax rate in the Netherlands from 5% to 7%. Due to the relatively short amount of time since enactment of the U.S. Tax Act and the complexity involved in evaluating and applying its provisions, our estimates may change as we proceed through the quarter and the year and additional guidance is issued by the Treasury Department, the IRS, state tax authorities and other authorities. We are forecasting Q1 non-GAAP fully diluted net income per share of approximately $10 to $10.40 per share, which, at the midpoint, is up about 3% versus prior year. Our non-GAAP EPS forecast includes an estimated income tax rate of approximately 20%, which is higher than the prior year rate for the same reasons I've just discussed for the GAAP tax rate.

我們預測第一季 GAAP 每股收益在 9.05 美元至 9.45 美元之間，其中數值比去年同期成長約 2%。我們的每股盈餘預期假設完全稀釋後的股份數量約為 4,920 萬股，這反映了我們迄今為止進行的普通股回購的正面影響，以及 3 月 15 日到期的可轉換債券和現金的結算。我們對第一季的 GAAP 每股盈餘預期假設稅率為 20%，而前一年的稅率為 14%，其中包括非經常性離散項目，這些項目使稅率降低了約 2 個百分點。2018 年預測稅率的提高反映了我們對美國稅法規定的稅收支出的最佳估計、對國際收益的州和地方稅收的估計，以及荷蘭創新盒稅率從 5% 提高到 7%。由於美國稅法頒布至今時間相對較短，且評估和應用其條款涉及諸多複雜因素，隨著本季度和本年度的推進，以及財政部、國稅局、州稅務機關和其他機構發布更多指導意見，我們的估計可能會發生變化。我們預測第一季非GAAP完全稀釋後每股淨收益約為10美元至10.40美元，其中數值比上年同期成長約3%。我們的非GAAP每股盈餘預測包括約20%的預計所得稅率，這比上一年的稅率更高，原因與我剛才討論的GAAP稅率的原因相同。

Our earnings release also includes detailed non-GAAP guidance for Q1 2018 under the previous revenue accounting standard, which is how our 2017 results were reported and analyst estimates have been prepared. We estimate that revenue and adjusted EBITDA amounts in the guidance I just gave would be about $65 million to $70 million higher if revenue were recognized at checkout as it was prior to adoption of the new revenue accounting standard.

我們的獲利報告還包括根據先前的收入會計準則編制的 2018 年第一季詳細非 GAAP 指引，這也是我們 2017 年業績報告和分析師預測編制的方式。我們估計，如果像採用新的收入會計準則之前那樣在結帳時確認收入，那麼我剛才給出的指導意見中的收入和調整後 EBITDA 金額將增加約 6500 萬美元至 7000 萬美元。

In summary, Q1 guidance under the previous revenue accounting standard for adjusted EBITDA would be $745 million to $770 million and non-GAAP EPS would be $11 to $11.40 per share, which compares to FactSet consensus of $10.35. We have hedged contracts in place to substantially shield our first quarter EBITDA and net earnings from any further fluctuation in currencies versus the dollar between now and the end of the quarter, but the hedges do not protect our gross bookings, revenue or operating profit from the impact of foreign currency fluctuations. Our forecast does not assume any significant change in macroeconomic conditions in general or in the travel market in particular.

總而言之，根據先前的營收會計準則，第一季調整後 EBITDA 的預期為 7.45 億美元至 7.7 億美元，非 GAAP 每股收益預期為 11 美元至 11.40 美元，而 FactSet 的普遍預期為 10.35 美元。我們已簽訂對沖合約，以大幅保護我們第一季的 EBITDA 和淨收益免受從現在到本季度末貨幣對美元匯率進一步波動的影響，但這些對沖合約並不能保護我們的總預訂量、收入或營業利潤免受外匯波動的影響。我們的預測並未假設宏觀經濟狀況（包括旅遊市場）會發生任何重大變化。

We will now take your questions.

現在開始回答各位的問題。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Eric Sheridan with UBS.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自瑞銀集團的艾瑞克‧謝裡丹。

With the commentary around alternative accommodations, I wonder if we could get a better sense of what you think alternative accommodations might be as a percentage of the mix longer term in the business, what that might mean if there are acquisition of inventory or conversion benefits in the business over the mid and long term.

鑑於您提到的替代住宿方式，我想知道，從長遠來看，您認為替代住宿方式在業務組合中可能佔多大比例？如果在中長期內業務中獲得庫存或轉換收益，這可能意味著什麼？

All right, Eric. You came in and out a little bit, but I think I got your question. We don't make a prediction going forward of what percentage the alternative accommodations will be of our business overall in the long run. What I will say, though, this is an important area for us, and that's why we've talked about it over the last couple of quarters of making investments in there. And we're going to continue to make investments going forward. We recognize that we may not be the global leader in this yet, but we also believe that this is an important thing for our customers to have. I've mentioned how I think that we do have a superior offering to our customers because we show both the alternative accommodation and the traditional accommodations on the same page. So when a customer is searching for what they want, they see both right there. They see the reviews right there. They get to choose among whatever they want first. And along with not only choosing it, it's instantly, instantly bookable. That's a big thing for a lot of customers. I've done it myself with some other services where you go back and forth, back and forth emailing and something -- then you find out the person doesn't really want to rent it to you. It's a horrible experience. So that's why we have all of our Booking.com alternative accommodations are 100% instantly bookable. That's one. The second thing is we do not charge the travelers fees. I think that's also an annoying thing for a customer. You go through -- you think the price is one thing, then you'll find, gee, this is a big service fee. That also, to me, is not the proper way to go. So I believe we have a superior offering. I recognize we're not the global leader yet. I recognize some geographies where perhaps we're not -- people aren't as aware of us as others is, but these are all areas that we're working hard to make sure that we do become a leader or the leader really. Does that answer your question?

好的，埃里克。你一會兒進來一會兒出去，但我想我明白你的問題了。我們不會預測從長遠來看，替代住宿服務在我們整體業務中所佔的比例。不過，我要說的是，這對我們來說是一個重要的領域，這也是為什麼在過去的幾個季度裡，我們一直在討論在這個領域進行投資的原因。我們將繼續加大投資力度。我們意識到我們可能還不是這方面的全球領導者，但我們也相信這對我們的客戶來說是一件非常重要的事情。我之前提到過，我認為我們為客戶提供的產品和服務更勝一籌，因為我們在同一頁上同時展示了替代住宿和傳統住宿。因此，當顧客搜尋他們想要的東西時，他們就能同時看到這兩樣東西。他們可以直接看到評論。他們可以先從中挑選自己想要的東西。而且不僅可以選擇，還可以立即預訂。這對很多顧客來說都是一件大事。我自己也用過其他一些服務，來回回寄郵件什麼的──結果發現對方其實不想把東西租給你。這是一次糟糕的經驗。所以這就是為什麼我們所有Booking.com的替代住宿都可以100%即時預訂的原因。這是其中之一。第二點是，我們不向旅客收取任何費用。我認為這對顧客來說也是一件很煩人的事。你仔細查看價格，以為是一回事，結果發現，哎呀，這服務費也很高。在我看來，那也不是正確的做法。所以我相信我們提供的產品更勝一籌。我知道我們目前還不是全球領導者。我意識到在某些地區，我們可能還沒有足夠的知名度——人們對我們的了解不如其他地方那麼多，但這些都是我們正在努力努力的地區，以確保我們能夠成為領導者，或者說是真正的領導者。這樣回答了你的問題嗎？

That's great.

那太棒了。

Our next question comes from Lloyd Walmsley with Deutsche Bank.

下一個問題來自德意志銀行的勞埃德‧沃姆斯利。

Two, if I can. First, just on the advertising leverage. Can you kind of break down some of the key drivers there across proactive bid reductions, finding new ad channels, like social, increases in direct traffic or ad traffic or just efficiency gains around conversion and kind of how much some of those may have contributed? And then, I guess, secondly, as you look at what Google's doing, sending more traffic down the funnel through hotel finder, can you just give us a sense for how that impacts ROIs on a same-session basis and then longer term how you feel about Google moving further down the funnel strategically?

如果可以的話，我會選兩個。首先，就廣告槓桿作用而言。您能否分析其中的一些關鍵驅動因素，例如主動降低出價、尋找新的廣告管道（如社群媒體）、增加直接流量或廣告流量，以及提高轉換率等，並說明這些因素分別做出了多大貢獻？其次，我想，考慮到Google正在做的，透過飯店搜尋器引導更多流量進入用戶轉換漏斗，您能否談談這會對單次會談的投資報酬率產生怎樣的影響？從長遠來看，您對Google在策略上進一步向用戶轉換漏斗做出調整有何看法？

Lloyd, so here's -- the thing is I have to be a little careful in giving that answer -- the answer to these questions because it's a little bit of a playbook in terms of what our competitors may react and what we're going to do. But let me talk a little bit about the first, the advertising leverage on our pay-for-performance, Eric, (sic) [Lloyd], which is really what we are talking about. We said in Q3 and here earlier about the fact that we want to optimize. And we're talking about raising ROIs. Now these are very dynamic marketplaces with a lot of different people participating in them with different strategic goals. When we go out there and we raise ROIs, we're expecting to achieve a certain level of return and a certain level of growth. It doesn't always end up that way. And as I said, I am very, very pleased with how things did end up in the fourth quarter. We cannot possibly know how it's going to go in the future because these are dynamic and we can have different results going forward. But these really are highly driven by what our bid's going to be and what we expect to get back. In addition, when we're doing that, it's not only what we're going to get back immediately, but we treat all our pay-for-performance channels with some different elements that we think are important. And that is really not just the ROI, but how are we being displayed when we -- when somebody lands on one of our pages. Is it a fair display or are we forced if we are going to get a good bid that's going to give a higher ranking to how -- change it to some of that -- the advertising platform wants us to do, basically putting on a penalty, so to speak, if our landing page doesn't match up with what the advertising platform wants us to be. That's a negative, and we had to think about that one. Then we also -- I just want to make sure that, overall, are people coming back to us or not? And that's a factor that we keep in. In regards to whether social played in at all, it really didn't. And I think we can safely say that our direct numbers have been going up, too, which is certainly a factor in our increased overall leverage, which is a good thing. Regarding Google and what they've been doing, we've been -- I've been in this business now 18 years, and we've been fairly close with Google since we bought Booking.com 2005. So we've been dealing with Google for a very long time. And they have made tremendous changes over this 13 years that I've been here. They've always been trying to develop new ways to bring customers. And we've had a very good relationship with them. It's been very symbiotic. And it's not only with Google, but it's also with our hotel partners, being able to provide customers to them at a more efficient way and a less costly way to them than it would be if they try to participate on their own in Google. So it's been good for everybody. We know that Google is going to continue to innovate new things, and we're going to have to continue to adapt to it. I am confident because we've been successful in the past that we'll continue to be successful in the future. And that's about the best we can predict about our future.

勞埃德，所以——問題是我在回答這些問題時必須謹慎一些——因為這有點像一份行動指南，關乎我們的競爭對手可能會做出什麼反應以及我們將要做什麼。但讓我先談談第一點，艾瑞克（原文如此）[勞埃德]，我們真正要討論的是廣告在我們按效果付費方面的槓桿作用。我們在第三季和之前都說過，我們想要進行最佳化。我們正在討論如何提高投資報酬率。如今，這些都是非常活躍的市場，許多不同的人出於不同的策略目標而參與其中。當我們外出提高投資報酬率時，我們期望達到一定的回報水準和成長水準。事情並非總是如此發展。正如我所說，我對第四季的最終結果非常非常滿意。我們不可能知道未來會如何發展，因為這些都是動態的，未來可能會出現不同的結果。但這些實際上很大程度上取決於我們的出價以及我們預期能獲得什麼回報。此外，當我們這樣做時，我們不僅考慮會立即獲得什麼回報，而且我們還會根據一些我們認為重要的不同因素來對待所有按效果付費的管道。這不僅關乎投資報酬率，而是關乎當有人造訪我們的頁面時，我們的展示方式。這種展示方式公平嗎？或者說，如果我們想要獲得更高的排名，就必須按照廣告平台的要求去做——或者說，如果我們的著陸頁不符合廣告平台的要求，我們就必須接受懲罰。這是一個不利因素，我們必須考慮這一點。然後我們還想確認一下——總的來說，人們是否會再次光顧我們？這是我們一直在考慮的因素。至於社交因素是否發揮了作用，答案是：實際上並沒有。而且我認為我們可以肯定地說，我們的直接客戶數量也在增加，這無疑是我們整體槓桿率上升的因素，這是一件好事。關於Google及其所作所為，我從事這個行業已經 18 年了，自從 2005 年收購 Booking.com 以來，我們與Google的關係一直相當密切。我們與谷歌的合作已經持續了很長時間。在我來這裡的這 13 年裡，他們做出了巨大的改變。他們一直在嘗試開發吸引顧客的新方法。我們和他們一直保持著非常好的關係。這是一種非常互惠互利的關係。而且，這不僅適用於谷歌，也適用於我們的酒店合作夥伴，我們能夠以更有效率、更經濟的方式為他們提供客戶，如果他們自己嘗試參與谷歌，成本就會高得多。所以這對大家都有好處。我們知道Google會繼續創新，我們也必須不斷適應它。我相信，鑑於我們過去取得的成功，我們將來也一定會繼續取得成功。這就是我們對未來所能做出的最佳預測了。

Good luck, Dan, to your retirement.

丹，祝你退休生活一切順利。

Thanks, Lloyd.

謝謝你，勞埃德。

Our next question comes from Brian Nowak with Morgan Stanley.

下一個問題來自摩根士丹利的布萊恩·諾瓦克。

I have 2. The first on the branded ad strategy. You've been trying -- tweaking and trying to fix the strategy for a little while. I guess, I'd be curious, can you give 1 to 2 tangible examples of how you've improved your branded ad strategy over the last 6 months? It sounds like direct traffic is increasing. Just what's improving on the branded side? And the second one is on China. I know you have the partnership with Ctrip. There was some talk of potentially hiring people in China in the press. Just be curious to hear about the China growth strategy over the course of 2018 and 2019.

我有兩個問題。第一個是關於品牌廣告策略的。你已經嘗試了一段時間，一直在調整和完善策略。我很好奇，您能否舉出 1 到 2 個具體的例子，說明您在過去 6 個月中是如何改進品牌廣告策略的？聽起來直達流量正在增加。品牌方面究竟有哪些改進？第二篇是關於中國的。我知道你們和攜程有合作關係。媒體報導中提到可能會在中國招募人員。我很好奇中國在 2018 年和 2019 年的成長策略。

Dan, you want to take the first one, and I'll talk about China?

丹，你想先回答第一個問題嗎？我來談談中國。

Sure. Our brand ad strategy, it's still in the pretty early stages, Lloyd -- Brian, sorry. What I would say is a couple of things that we've done recently that I think are helping us and are important for the future is improving the tools and the processes that we use to measure the effectiveness of the advertising. So it's never going to be perfect. But at least, it's something that our teams can look at and try and get a sense for, is that advertising moving the needle? Is it causing people to come to our website and then invest in ads that are working and don't invest in ads that aren't working? So I think that's a positive. We've rolled out in additional markets. So I think that's a positive, too. And the team continues to look to improve the effectiveness of that advertising. Really excited about the benefit it can give us in terms of driving customers direct to our website, improving the awareness of our brand with those customers. And so I'm hopeful that we'll be able to spend a lot more money there over time if the team feels comfortable that they're getting the reaction to the advertising that they want.

當然。我們的品牌廣告策略還處於非常早期的階段，Lloyd——抱歉，Brian。我想說的是，我們最近做的幾件事，我認為對我們有幫助，對未來很重要，那就是改進我們用來衡量廣告效果的工具和流程。所以它永遠不會完美。但至少，我們的團隊可以看看，並且試著了解一下，這種廣告方式是否真的有效？這是否會導致人們造訪我們的網站，然後投資於有效的廣告，而避免投資於無效的廣告？所以我認為這是個正面的訊號。我們已在其他市場推出服務。所以我認為這也是一個積極的方面。團隊將持續努力提高廣告效果。我們對它能為我們帶來的好處感到非常興奮，它能直接引導顧客造訪我們的網站，提高顧客對我們品牌的認知度。因此，我希望隨著時間的推移，如果團隊覺得廣告效果達到了預期，我們能夠在那裡投入更多的資金。

And Brian, can you tell me again regarding your question about China, I didn't quite get what you were saying about hiring people. Could you repeat that, please?

布萊恩，關於你之前問的中國的問題，你能再跟我說一遍嗎？我不太明白你說的關於招募人員的事情。你再說一遍，好嗎？

Yes. Just -- I'm trying to better understand the China kind of acquisition strategy. I know you have the Ctrip partnership. There's some speculation in the press about that you're hiring people to bring on your own inventory in China. Just trying to understand the investment and the drivers of the China business the next couple of years.

是的。我只是想更了解中國式的收購策略。我知道你們和攜程有合作關係。媒體上有一些猜測，說你們正在僱用人員在中國引進自己的庫存。我只是想了解未來幾年中國市場的投資情況和驅動因素。

Okay. So let me clarify this a little bit when we talk about China in general, which we've spoken about several times in the past, we do believe that China is the locomotive of travel growth for some time to come. We know how important that is. And that's why we've been in China for a significant amount of time. We have our own offices there. We have a significant number of people there. It's -- both Booking.com and Agoda are operating in China. Our Rentalcars company has been going -- having relations with a number of different players in China to make sure to get Chinese customers. So we know how important China is. Regarding the strategy, it's really -- there are 3 areas of China that we've talked about where it's -- one thing that we are very good about is the outbound business because Chinese outbound travel is growing significantly. We've got all those great properties around the world that the Chinese traveler wants to visit. And we've got a great effective both mobile app and our desktop site that enables the Chinese customer to be able to go out, find what they want, get it at a great price. And we also have 24/7 Mandarin customer service. In fact, we have a large customer service operation in China. So that's an important part. Another thing that's very important is people want to go to China. So we have a tremendous customer base, many of whom want to go visit China. If they want to get at a place to stay in China, no different than anywhere else, they're going -- coming to our companies to do that. That's great, too. So we -- to get those properties, we have our own properties that we've contracted with ourselves in addition with partnership with people like Ctrip, for example, to get some inventory from them, too. And then there's the domestic business, which is a very, very big travel business. And I will admit we are not a big player there compared to some of the local players, but it's an important thing for us to continue to develop that. So big market, big opportunity, and we're spending money and investing there.

好的。所以，讓我稍微澄清一下，當我們談到中國這個整體時（我們過去也多次談到過），我們確實認為，在未來一段時間內，中國將是旅遊業成長的引擎。我們知道這有多重要。這就是為什麼我們在中國待了相當長一段時間的原因。我們在那裡設有自己的辦公室。我們在那裡有相當多的人。Booking.com 和 Agoda 都在中國營運。我們的租車公司一直在與中國的許多不同企業建立聯繫，以確保獲得中國客戶。所以我們知道中國有多重要。關於策略，我們確實談到了中國的三個領域——我們非常擅長的領域之一是出境旅遊，因為中國出境旅遊正在顯著增長。我們擁有中國遊客想去參觀的遍布世界各地的優質飯店。我們擁有非常高效的行動應用程式和桌面網站，使中國消費者能夠外出購物，找到他們想要的東西，並以優惠的價格購買。我們也提供全天候國語客服服務。事實上，我們在中國擁有龐大的客戶服務機構。所以這是很重要的一環。還有一點非常重要，那就是人們想去中國。因此，我們擁有龐大的客戶群，其中許多人都想去中國旅遊。如果他們想在中國找個地方住，就像在其他地方一樣，他們會來我們公司找住處。那也很棒。所以，為了獲得這些房產，我們除了與攜程等公司合作，從他們那裡獲得一些房源之外，還擁有我們自己簽約的房產。此外，還有國內旅遊業務，這是一個非常非常龐大的旅遊業務。我承認，與一些當地企業相比，我們在那裡的規模還不夠大，但對我們來說，繼續發展這方面業務非常重要。所以市場很大，機會也很大，我們正在那裡投入資金和投資。

Our next question comes from Douglas Anmuth with JPMorgan.

下一個問題來自摩根大通的道格拉斯·安穆斯。

Our next question comes from Mark May with Citi.

下一個問題來自花旗銀行的馬克‧梅。

Two, please. Your -- the mix -- your marketing mix towards branding is still relatively low based on what you've learned in recent periods. Where do you see that going in terms of percent of your overall marketing mix? And how do you think about the payback period for the brand channels relative to the performance channels? And then a separate question, if I could. I think one of your competitors just talked about meaningfully stepping up their investment in building out supply in markets like Europe and APAC. What, if any, impact do you see that having on your business?

請給我兩個。根據你最近一段時間所了解到的情況，你的品牌行銷組合仍然相對較低。您認為它在整體行銷組合中所佔的百分比會是多少？您認為品牌通路相對於效果通路的投資回收期為何？如果可以的話，我還想問一個問題。我認為你們的某個競爭對手剛剛談到要大幅增加在歐洲和亞太等市場擴大供應的投資。您認為這會對您的業務產生什麼影響（如果有的話）？

So marketing, so brand marketing is a long-term play. And we've made it very clear to everyone that we want to grow that part of our brand as a part of our marketing mix, but we're going to do it smartly, using a lot of the things that we learn in performance, which is being scientific about it. And I think that, over time, people have been seeing some of the new tools that people have developed. And particularly, when you're advertising brand online versus TV, where you have a better ability to see how the reaction is to those advertisers, that the whole area of brand marketing is going more scientific. So more science, less art. But art is still a very important part of that. So we're going to continue to develop. And you're right, it's not a huge part of the marketing mix yet, but we want to spend more. But we're not going to spend it unless we think we're getting the results we want. How long? What's the payback? I'm not going to define how -- the specific time, but we're going to continue to invest both in people, tools, coming up with good creative and making sure that we're getting the right return for it in the long run. It is an important thing because we know that there's both the effect you get from people being aware of the brand now trying to come to us direct, but we also know it improves our pay-for-performance. There's more effectiveness with the pay-for-performance when people still have that in top of mind, you're part of the selection set. Regarding increased supply, everybody's always trying to increase supply around the world for all our players, all our competitors. That's nothing new. In fact, a long time ago, we didn't have so much supply. We were a small player compared to our competitors. But just getting supply is not the be all and end all to success. It's just one small part of the formula that you need to execute. And you have to execute all elements of this formula. And just going out and getting supply, in my mind, is really not going to do much if you don't also execute on all the other elements. So in regards to how I feel about other companies going out to get more supply, they've been getting a lot -- trying to get more supply for a very long time. That's not something that's concerning me.

所以行銷，尤其是品牌行銷，是一項長期策略。我們已經向所有人明確表示，我們希望發展我們品牌的這一部分，將其作為我們行銷組合的一部分，但我們將以明智的方式進行，運用我們在績效方面學到的很多東西，也就是科學地對待它。我認為，隨著時間的推移，人們已經看到了人們開發的一些新工具。尤其是在線上投放品牌廣告（而不是在電視上投放）時，你能夠更了解廣告主對消費者的反應，這表明整個品牌行銷領域正朝著更科學的方向發展。所以，多一些科學，少一些藝術。但藝術仍然是其中非常重要的一部分。所以我們會繼續發展。你說得對，它目前在行銷組合中所佔比例還不大，但我們希望增加投入。但除非我們認為能得到想要的結果，否則我們不會花這筆錢。多久？回報是什麼？我不會具體說明方式——具體時間，但我們將繼續投資於人才、工具，以及產生好的創意，並確保從長遠來看我們能獲得正確的回報。這是一件很重要的事，因為我們知道，這不僅能讓人們意識到品牌的存在，並促使他們直接聯繫我們，也能提高我們的按效果付費效果。如果人們仍然把績效付費放在首位，那麼績效付費的效果就會更好，你就會成為候選名單的一部分。關於增加供應的問題，每個人都在努力增加世界各地的供應，以滿足我們所有玩家和所有競爭對手的需求。這沒什麼新鮮的。事實上，很久以前，我們的供應量並沒有這麼多。與競爭對手相比，我們只是個小公司。但僅僅獲得供應並不是成功的全部。這只是你需要執行的整個流程的一小部分。你必須執行這個公式中的所有要素。在我看來，僅僅出去採購物資是遠遠不夠的，如果你不同時做好其他所有環節的話。至於我對其他公司努力獲取更多供應的看法，他們已經做了很多——他們已經努力獲取更多供應很長時間了。那不是我擔心的事。

Our next question comes from Douglas Anmuth with JPMorgan.

下一個問題來自摩根大通的道格拉斯·安穆斯。

This is Dae Lee on for Doug Anmuth. Sorry for earlier, the call dropped. Our question is on the higher-level macro travel environment. Could you give us your latest thoughts on the overall travel environment right now? (inaudible) Europe seems to be better from security issues that we've seen over the past few years. So I'm just curious to see -- get your latest thoughts on the environment going into 2018.

這裡是 Dae Lee 替 Doug Anmuth 報道。抱歉，剛才通話中斷了。我們的問題是關於更高層次的宏觀旅遊環境。您能否談談您對當前整體旅行環境的最新看法？（聽不清楚）歐洲似乎比過去幾年我們所看到的安全問題好一些。所以我很好奇，想聽聽您對2018年環境議題的最新看法。

Sure. So travel is a function of global GDP. And as the world's economies do well, travel grows faster. And particularly when you have certain parts of the world where people could not afford to travel and things are going well there and people are moving into the income level where you can travel, one of the first thing they want to do is travel. And that's an area where we are currently spending time, energy and effort to make sure that we're there as people are ready to travel. So overall, the market is good. We're a global player. So some places are better than other places, but we have to look at the whole globe in terms of our business. And I would say, overall, it's good. Dan, is there anything specific, I don't know, you want to speak to?

當然。因此，旅遊業與全球GDP密切相關。隨著世界經濟的繁榮發展，旅遊業也發展得更快。尤其是在世界上的某些地區，人們以前無力旅行，而現在這些地區發展良好，人們的收入水平提高了，可以去旅行了，那麼他們最想做的第一件事就是旅行。而這正是我們目前投入時間、精力和努力的領域，以確保在人們準備好旅行時，我們能夠及時提供服務。整體而言，市場狀況良好。我們是一家全球性企業。所以有些地方比其他地方好，但就我們的業務而言，我們必須放眼全球。總的來說，我覺得還不錯。丹，你有什麼具體的事情想跟我說嗎？

No. I agree with what you said. The ADRs and occupancy rates continue to be strong. We feel like the travel market is in good shape. Currencies, I think the euro strengthening could help us with European travel to the U.S. And it certainly creates a nice positive impact on our results expressed in dollars.

不。我同意你的說法。平均房價和入住率持續保持強勁勢頭。我們認為旅遊市場情況良好。我認為，歐元走強可能會促進歐洲人赴美旅行，而且肯定會對我們以美元計價的業績產生正面影響。

Our next question comes from Mark Mahaney with RBC.

下一個問題來自加拿大皇家銀行的馬克·馬哈尼。

It's [Mark] on behalf of Mark. Two long-term questions. One has to do with direct traffic. And when you think about booking as a business and the OTAs as a business for an activity that's frequent but not -- that's more several times a year rather than several times a month, how much traffic do you think actually could come, theoretically if you execute well, could actually in the future come directly to Priceline or to Booking and how much do you think you'll always have to rely on variety of third-party pay-for-performance channels? And then the second question has to do with lodging inventory and how much you need to get over time. You have a massive amount of this inventory, 1.6 million. And I know, Glenn, you just said it's not the be all and end all or whatever. But you're clearly devoting more resources every year to getting more traffic, more inventory. What's the right amount to get in the future? Is it always just more is good? Or is there a limit to how much inventory you really need?

這是[Mark]代表Mark寄來的。兩個長期問題。其中一個與直接交通有關。當你把 Booking 和 OTA 看作一項業務，而這些業務針對的是一項頻繁但不頻繁的活動——這種活動一年發生幾次，而不是一個月發生幾次——你認為，如果執行得當，未來實際能有多少流量直接流向 Priceline 或 Booking？你認為你還需要在多大程度上依賴各種第三方按效果付費管道？第二個問題與住宿庫存有關，以及隨著時間的推移你需要獲得多少庫存。你們擁有大量的這種庫存，160萬件。我知道，格倫，你剛才也說了這不是一切的終點之類的。但很明顯，你們每年都在投入更多資源來吸引更多流量，增加更多庫存。未來應該儲備多少資金才合適？難道越多越好嗎？或者說，你實際需要的庫存量是有限制的嗎？

Thank you, [Mark]. Yes, those are tough questions. I'd like to believe that, in the long run, that we create this holistic travel product that is so good and it enables people to always think when they're traveling that they want to come to us because of better, better service. But I recognize, as you point out, not everybody travels often. And perhaps, sometimes they will not be thinking of us top of mind, coming directly to us and maybe they're going to use search engines or other ways, third-party service. So we're going to always have to do both, I believe. And when we look at something like an Amazon and we just -- it's just wonderful for them, the way so many people -- they go directly to Amazon. That's a great thing for us to aspire to be able to do. I don't know if we'd ever get there or not, but I certainly know that the way to try and get there is always providing a better service, the best selection, the most breadth, the best prices, great customer service, getting rid of the friction. And then God forbid, anything goes wrong, anything goes wrong, you fix it. And those people then become loyal for life. But I don't know when and how and I certainly can't predict what's the ultimate direct number going to be. Regarding inventory, also a good way to start is more is better. I agree with that. We're nowhere near at the level where, one would start thinking do we have enough, particularly in some areas in that alternative accommodations. We have a large number of alternative accommodations around the world. But there are areas where I look, I know we are not complete at all, which is why we're spending additional money to get that additional inventory in it. And I definitely think one of the things that we are going to be looking at over the long run is, what's the cost of that extra inventory? Is that producing a good ROI? It costs you to go get it? And is that something that is actually giving us the right return or not? I know that there are certain services that have a huge number of accommodations on their platforms. And I have been told, I don't know it or not, but I've been told that a not insignificant number of that inventory has not only not been booked in the last 12 months. It's never been booked. Now so that was cost to go out somehow or not and was not an efficient use? I don't know. But that's something that we definitely will be thinking about going down the path of making sure that we're not going out and getting inventory just to have inventory. And there has to be a good ROI in everything we do, including getting inventory.

謝謝你，[馬克]。是的，這些都是棘手的問題。我希望從長遠來看，我們能夠打造出優秀的整體旅行產品，讓人們在旅行時始終想到我們，因為我們能提供越來越好的服務。但正如你所指出的，我也意識到並非每個人都經常旅行。或許，有時他們不會先想到我們，不會直接聯絡我們，而是會使用搜尋引擎或其他方式，例如第三方服務。所以我認為，我們始終都需要兩者兼顧。當我們看到像亞馬遜這樣的公司時，我們會覺得——這對他們來說真是太棒了，因為很多人都直接去亞馬遜購物。這是我們努力追求的目標。我不知道我們是否能達到目標，但我確信，實現目標的途徑始終是提供更好的服務、最好的選擇、最廣泛的產品、最優惠的價格、優質的客戶服務，並消除摩擦。然後，萬一出了什麼問題，萬一出了什麼問題，就得把它解決掉。這些人從此就會終身效忠於你。但我不知道何時、如何，當然也無法預測最終的直接數字會是多少。關於庫存，一個好的開始就是：越多越好。我同意。我們離那種會讓人開始思考我們是否有足夠的替代住宿條件的水平還差得很遠。我們在世界各地有大量的替代住宿選擇。但有些領域，我一看就知道我們還沒有完全完善，所以我們才要花額外的錢來增加這些額外的庫存。而且我認為，從長遠來看，我們肯定要考慮的問題之一是，額外的庫存成本是多少？這樣能帶來良好的投資報酬率嗎？去拿它需要花錢嗎？這樣做真的能帶給我們應有的回報嗎？我知道有些服務平台擁有大量的住宿選擇。有人告訴我（我不知道是否屬實），相當一部分庫存不僅在過去 12 個月內沒有被預訂。它從未被預訂過。所以，無論是否外出，都需要付出一定的成本，但這並非有效的運用方式？我不知道。但我們肯定會考慮這個問題，以確保我們不會為了囤貨而囤貨。我們所做的每一件事都必須有良好的投資報酬率，包括取得庫存。

Our next question comes from Justin Post with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

下一個問題來自美國銀行美林證券的賈斯汀·波斯特。

When I look back at 2017, it was a year of tougher comps, very tough comps and obviously you made a big performance advertising shift obviously to probably help improve margins going forward. Just wondering how much the comps and the change in marketing could be affecting your growth rate in Q1? And 6% to 10% bookings growth is -- at constant FX, how do you think about that number as you go forward? And is some of the performance investing you're doing now targeted at improving your growth rates in the upcoming summer booking season?

回顧 2017 年，那一年競爭非常激烈，競爭異常激烈，顯然你們對效果廣告進行了重大調整，這可能有助於提高未來的利潤率。我想知道同店銷售額和行銷策略的變化對你們第一季的成長率有多大影響？如果以固定匯率計算，6% 到 10% 的預訂量成長意味著什麼？展望未來，您如何看待這個數字？您目前進行的一些績效投資是否旨在提高即將到來的夏季預訂旺季的成長率？

Justin, it's Dan. I'd say you have it right. The comps are tough for us. We think that the comp in Q1 is still a tough one with 27% growth last year. We were far more aggressive in the performance marketing channels than we are -- last year than we are currently with our performance marketing optimization efforts. So that has a little bit of an impact together with the comp. And then in addition, the timing of holidays can have an impact, particularly in Q1. It always seems to be a volatile quarter, depending upon how the New Year falls and then Chinese New Year and Easter. And as I said in the prepared remarks, we think that Easter falling on April 1 has a slightly negative impact to the quarter in terms of gross bookings and room night growth and a more significant negative impact to the remaining period in the quarter as customers make cancellations to the extent that their plans change coming up to the Easter holiday and then as we move towards the end of the month, when they're actually traveling and not booking. The performance marketing advertisements that we're making today are certainly driving gross bookings that are going to check out in Q2 for Easter and in summertime. And so it's driving growth in our revenue and our profit that's going to be reported for future quarters. Glenn talked about our desire to try and win these customers over to be loyal customers over time. And so we're hopeful that with the performance marketing dollars that we're allocating to channels that are -- have a better proven track record of driving customers to us that become loyal over time that, that will also benefit our growth rate in the future.

賈斯汀，我是丹。我覺得你說得對。這些比賽對我們來說很艱難。我們認為第一季的年比數據仍然難以預測，因為去年同期成長率為 27%。去年我們在效果行銷管道上的投入比現在積極得多，我們在效果行銷優化方面的努力也遠不如現在。所以這會對比賽產生一些影響。此外，假日的安排也會產生影響，尤其是在第一季。這個季度似乎總是波動較大，這取決於新年、中國新年和復活節的日期。正如我在準備好的發言稿中所說，我們認為復活節落在 4 月 1 日會對本季度的總預訂量和客房夜數增長產生輕微的負面影響，並且對本季度剩餘時間的影響更為顯著，因為客戶會在復活節假期臨近時取消預訂，因為他們的計劃會發生改變，然後在臨近月底，當他們實際出行而不是出現負面影響時，這種預訂會更加明顯。我們今天投放的效果行銷廣告無疑會推動第二季復活節和夏季的預訂量成長。因此，這將推動我們未來幾季營收和利潤的成長。Glenn談到了我們希望努力贏得這些客戶的信任，讓他們隨著時間的推移成為忠實客戶。因此，我們希望，透過將效果行銷資金分配給那些在為我們帶來客戶、並使其逐漸成為忠誠客戶的管道，未來也能有利於我們的成長率。

Great. And Glenn, maybe one follow-up. There's a question about industry saturation or penetration levels, just -- excluding business travel. How do you feel about the industry and where online travel is today on a higher level?

偉大的。格倫，或許還需要一個後續問題。這裡存在一個關於行業飽和度或滲透率的問題，但不包括商務旅行。您對旅遊業以及目前線上旅遊的發展現況有何看法？

I think it's important that we don't use the word online travel as much. It's travel. And people use lots of different ways to travel. And people use their computer, desktop. They use their mobile phones. Sometimes, they make telephone calls. Sometimes, they walk in. Our belief is that we are a single -- high single-digit share of the overall travel industry. Our goal is to have a much, much higher percentage of that overall industry. And I believe that there's still huge, huge ramp left for us.

我認為我們應該盡量減少使用「網上旅行」這個詞。這是旅行。人們出行的方式多種多樣。人們使用電腦，桌上型電腦。他們使用手機。有時，他們會打電話。有時，他們會走進來。我們認為，我們在整個旅遊業中所佔的份額只有個位數（接近10%）。我們的目標是在整個產業中佔據更高的比例。我相信我們還有非常非常大的發展空間。

Our next question comes from Paul Bieber with Crédit Suisse.

下一個問題來自瑞士信貸的保羅·比伯。

Best of luck, Dan, with your retirement. Just following up on Justin's question. How should we interpret the 8% to 12% room night growth guidance given that you've just significantly outperformed in 4Q and we're around 2/3 of the way through 1Q? Has anything changed with the overall demand environment over the last couple of months? Or as you just discussed, this is mostly the Easter shift and the comp issue?

丹，祝你退休生活一切順利。我來補充一下賈斯汀的問題。鑑於貴公司第四季業績大幅超出預期，且第一季已過三分之二，我們該如何解讀 8% 至 12% 的客房夜數成長預期？過去幾個月來，整體需求環境是否發生了任何變化？或者就像你剛才討論的那樣，這主要是復活節輪班和薪資補償問題？

Yes. There's nothing else that I'd point to. The other thing that I mentioned is the performance marketing optimization efforts, that certainly has an impact. And I think you make a good point there, too, Paul, that we are 2/3 of the way through the quarter, and so there is less room for volatility in the forecast relative to the actuals, just given the amount of time left. But those are the principal things that we're seeing. In terms of future growth, the comp does get easier as we move through the year and we start to lap the performance advertising optimization efforts.

是的。除此之外，我沒有什麼要指出的了。我提到的另一點是效果行銷優化工作，這肯定會產生影響。保羅，我認為你說的也很有道理，我們已經度過了本季度的三分之二，因此，考慮到剩餘的時間，預測相對於實際情況的波動空間較小。但這些都是我們目前看到的主要情況。就未來的成長而言，隨著時間的推移，競爭會變得越來越容易，因為我們開始超越成效廣告優化的努力。

Okay. And just one quick follow-up. What are your early learnings from your increased investment in TV advertising?

好的。還有一個後續問題。您從加大電視廣告投入中獲得了哪些初步經驗？

Well, our learning so far is that it's good to experiment. Some things have been working well. Some things we think, "Gee, that didn't work so well." But as I pointed out earlier, the numbers are relatively small. And we're going to continue to experiment until we find the right creative, the right -- what channels you're going to use, which geographies. There's so many things to do in trying to learn. And we said this a couple of quarters ago, I believe, when we mentioned this is a new area for us, and we hired people to bring in. And we're slowly beginning to learn about this. We know that brand advertising, whether it be online brand advertising or TV advertising, we know it works for people. We know it's effective. We just need to come up with the right people, the right tools, the right creative. And over the long run, there's no reason we shouldn't be one of the top successful companies in this area.

嗯，我們目前學到的是，勇於嘗試是件好事。有些事情進展順利。有些事情我們可能會想，「哎呀，這不太奏效。」但正如我之前指出的，這些數字相對較小。我們將繼續進行試驗，直到找到合適的創意、合適的管道和合適的地區。學習過程中有很多事情要做。我相信，我們幾個季度前就說過，這對我們來說是一個新領域，我們雇了人來引進。我們正在慢慢地了解這件事。我們知道，品牌廣告，無論是線上品牌廣告或電視廣告，對人們來說都是有效的。我們知道它是有效的。我們只需要找到合適的人才、合適的工具和合適的創意。從長遠來看，我們完全有理由成為該領域最成功的公司之一。

Our next question comes from Kevin Kopelman with Cowen.

下一個問題來自 Cowen 公司的 Kevin Kopelman。

Could you talk more -- I just had a question about vacation rentals. Given recent competitive developments, can you share with us your view on providing hands-on inspections and photography for vacation rental listings, whether that's something that makes sense and is something Booking would be interested in doing?

能再多說幾句嗎？我有一個關於度假租賃的問題。鑑於最近的競爭形勢，您能否與我們分享您對為度假租賃房源提供實地考察和攝影服務的看法？這樣做是否合理，Booking 是否有興趣這樣做？

I saw that by a competitor going in the future come out with that. And I'll be completely open that I haven't examined this area very much so in terms of the costs of that, how much do the consumer want that, how much of the consumer already trust. One of the great things about our Booking.com platform is people already trust us. They know when they come to us they get that alternative accommodation. They already feel confident that they're getting what is on the page. It is as described, and they're going to get it. And if it goes wrong, that we have that backup with that 24/7 customer service in 43 languages that will fix it for them. So I don't know yet. I heard about it, and it's something that we'll think about. And we'll see what it may or may not be. But that's about the best I can give today.

我看到競爭對手未來會推出類似的產品。我完全坦白地說，我還沒有深入研究過這個領域，所以就成本而言，消費者有多想要它，消費者對它的信任度有多高。Booking.com平台的一大優勢在於人們已經信任我們。他們知道來我們這裡就能得到替代住宿。他們已經確信自己得到了紙上所寫的內容。正如描述的那樣，他們會收到的。如果出現問題，我們還有備用方案，提供 43 種語言的 24/7 全天候客戶服務，可以幫他們解決問題。所以我還不知道。我聽說過這件事，我們會考慮的。我們拭目以待。但我今天能提供的也就只有這些了。

Okay. And if I could just ask one more. Can you give us any update on bookable rooms, what that looked like and how it's trending?

好的。如果可以的話，我還能再問一個問題嗎？能否提供一下可預訂房間的最新情況，例如房間預訂情況如何，以及目前的趨勢如何？

Right now we're just giving out that property count, that property number. We may come down the road and refine it a little bit. But I like just giving that property number for now with the reclassification.

現在我們只是公佈房產數量，也就是房產編號。我們以後可能會對它做一些改進。但我目前還是喜歡在重新分類後直接給出房產編號。

Our next question comes from Heath Terry with Goldman Sachs.

下一個問題來自高盛的希思·特里。

Great. I really appreciate the level of detail around the impact from the accounting changes and the holiday changes, extremely helpful. Just maybe a couple of questions on the -- on trivago's call, they talked about independent hotels increasingly using the elimination of pricing parity in Europe as a way to sort of game the system and generate higher clicks, so sort of win the [bot] box on metasearch platforms. Curious how you guys view that strategy and how widespread you feel like it is and whether or not it's growing the way they say it is, in your opinion. And then we've also had a few relatively high-profile comments out of Airbnb over the last few weeks about their intentions towards the boutique hotels and the traction that they're seeing with their latest offering. Curious -- obviously, too early to see any impact, but curious of how you view that from a competitive standpoint.

偉大的。我非常感謝您詳細分析會計準則變更和假日變更的影響，這非常有幫助。可能還有幾個問題——在 trivago 的電話會議上，他們談到獨立酒店越來越多地利用歐洲取消價格一致性的現象，以此來鑽制度的空子，獲得更高的點擊量，從而在元搜索平台上贏得[機器人]的青睞。很好奇你們如何看待這種策略，你們覺得它的普及程度如何，以及它是否像他們所說的那樣發展壯大。在過去幾週，Airbnb 也發表了一些備受矚目的評論，談到了他們對精品酒店的意圖以及他們最新產品所取得的成效。很好奇——顯然現在判斷其影響還為時過早，但很好奇您從競爭角度如何看待這一點。

Dan, maybe you can take the first one, and I'll take that second one about Airbnb.

丹，或許你可以回答第一個問題，我來回答第二個關於 Airbnb 的問題。

Sure. So Heath, we haven't seen any significant increase in price parity issues with hotels. This is sort of akin to the pricing that -- some of the chains were doing last year: lower price if you're a registered user and you come directly to the website. And I think what they found there was that's a costly undertaking. That means you're offering a lower price now to all of your customers, including the ones that were going to come to you directly and pay full price. So I don't see that as being a winning move for independent hotels at the end of the day. I wouldn't expect that they're going to offer better prices in trivago than they would on their own website. And so we're not really seeing that in the marketplace. I think trivago said it was a massive increase and a very small number. So no further comment beyond that.

當然。所以希思，我們還沒有看到飯店價格平價問題有任何顯著增加。這有點像去年一些連鎖店採取的定價策略：如果你是註冊用戶並且直接訪問網站，價格會更低。我認為他們發現，這是一項代價高昂的工程。這意味著你現在向所有客戶提供更低的價格，包括那些原本打算直接來找你並支付全額的客戶。所以，我認為從長遠來看，這對獨立酒店來說並不是一個明智之舉。我不認為他們在 trivago 上的價格會比在他們自己的網站上更優惠。因此，我們在市場上並沒有真正看到這種情況。我記得 trivago 說的是大幅成長，但實際數字很小。除此之外，我不再作任何評論。

And regarding the announcement of one of our competitors that they're going to get into the boutique hotels on to their platform, we've been facing competition of all sorts for a long time. And some of our biggest competitors have very, very large supply of all different types of accommodations. I don't see that one company come in and say they're going to offer a certain number -- a small number of select hotel-type properties as a big issue. Look, our goal here -- our DNA has always been, one, to concentrate a lot on what we're doing for the customer; be focused on our customers, not as much our competitors. Come up with that best service, that best product, so that in the end, the customer wants to come to us. So that's really where our focus is on, not as much that somebody else is going to hook up to a channel manager and have 10,000 or whatever unique whatever boutique hotels. Look, competition in our industry is very, very hard. It's been that way for a very long time. And fortunately, our teams are good and we've been successful to date. And I'm pleased with the past, and I hope we're able to continue to do so in the future.

至於我們的一位競爭對手宣布將精品酒店納入其平台，我們長期以來一直面臨著各種形式的競爭。我們的一些最大競爭對手擁有非常非常多的各種類型的住宿供應。我不認為會有哪家公司站出來說他們將提供一定數量的精選酒店式物業會成為一個大問題。你看，我們的目標－我們的DNA一直都是，第一，非常注重我們為客戶所做的事情；專注於我們的客戶，而不是我們的競爭對手。拿出最好的服務和最好的產品，最終讓顧客主動選擇我們。所以，這才是我們真正關注的重點，而不是其他人連接到通路管理系統，然後擁有 10,000 家或更多獨特的精品酒店。你看，我們這個行業的競爭非常非常激烈。這種情況已經持續很久了。幸運的是，我們的團隊很優秀，到目前為止我們也成功了。我對過去的成績感到滿意，也希望我們將來也能繼續取得同樣的成績。

Our last question is from Deepak Mathivanan with Barclays Capital.

最後一個問題來自巴克萊資本的迪帕克·馬蒂瓦南。

I wanted to ask about the marketing strategy for alternative accommodations. You have clearly now ramped supply aggressively over the last 2 years and have a pretty sizable base. But if you look at demand generation, it seems like alternative accommodations still underindexes on many channels. And looks like there's a lot of opportunity to acquire customers from alternative accommodations batch specifically, either by bidding on keywords specific to alternative accommodations or running TV campaigns around that. The question is, what are the milestones to hit before we see more meaningful push on demand generation in the alternative accommodations world? And when can we expect to see that?

我想諮詢一下替代住宿的行銷策略。過去兩年，你們顯然已經大幅增加了供應量，並擁有了相當可觀的客戶基礎。但從需求產生的角度來看，替代住宿在許多管道上的需求似乎仍然偏低。看起來有很多機會可以從另類住宿領域獲取客戶，無論是透過競價購買與另類住宿相關的關鍵字，還是圍繞這些關鍵字進行電視廣告活動。問題是，在替代住宿領域需求產生方面，我們需要達到哪些里程碑才能看到更有意義的推動？我們什麼時候才能看到這種情況？

Deepak, we've already been, I think, aggressively in performance marketing channels buying keywords that are more applicable to alternative accommodations. So I see us there already. Alternative accommodations are already a meaningful part of our business, growing faster than our overall growth rate, so accretive to our growth. And that's one of the reasons why we've continued to add them at such a healthy clip is that we've got demand for them. Our customers want them. And so we're already making the efforts in that space. I think where we have an opportunity in the future is with our brand advertising to get the message across to people that, you know what, if you love Airbnb and that type of property, well, take a look at Booking.com, too, because we've got a massive amount of those properties as well as the more traditional properties, as Glenn said, available to you in one search. And then you can pick whichever property works best for you and your family.

我認為，我們已經在效果行銷管道中積極購買更適用於替代住宿的關鍵字。所以我覺得我們已經到達那裡了。替代住宿服務已成為我們業務的重要組成部分，其成長速度超過了我們整體的成長速度，因此對我們的成長起到了促進作用。而我們能夠持續以如此健康的速度增加這些產品的原因之一，就是市場對它們有需求。我們的客戶需要它們。因此，我們已經在該領域做出了努力。我認為我們未來的機會在於透過品牌廣告向人們傳達這樣的訊息：如果你喜歡 Airbnb 和這類房源，那麼也請看看 Booking.com，因為我們擁有大量的這類房源以及更傳統的房源，正如 Glenn 所說，你只需一次搜尋即可找到它們。然後您可以選擇最適合您和您家人的房產。

I would now like to turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.

現在我想把電話轉回管理階層，請他們做總結發言。

Thank you. I'm going to give the final word to Dan. Dan, your final word.

謝謝。我把最後的話交給丹來說。丹，你最後再說一次。

Thanks, Glenn. As we close my last earnings call as CFO, I'd like to thank analysts and investors for your insightful questions and interest in our company. I also want to thank my colleagues all around the world for their hard work and skill to deliver another fantastic year in a string of many amazing years of growth and profitability. It has been a wonderful experience being part of your team. I wish you all the best, and I look forward to following your continued future success.

謝謝你，格倫。在我作為財務長的最後一次財報電話會議即將結束之際，我要感謝分析師和投資者們提出的富有洞察力的問題以及對我們公司的關注。我還要感謝世界各地的同事們，感謝他們的辛勤工作和精湛技藝，使公司在連續多年實現驚人增長和盈利的基礎上，又迎來了一個輝煌的年份。能成為你們團隊的一員，真是一段美好的經驗。祝你一切順利，期待你未來繼續成功。

Thank you, Dan, and we all wish you the best. And thank you, everybody, for participating in our call.

謝謝你，丹，我們都祝你一切順利。感謝各位參與我們的電話會議。

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. Thank you for your participation. Have a wonderful day.

女士們、先生們，今天的會議到此結束。感謝您的參與。祝您有美好的一天。