Expedia Group Inc (EXPE) 2022 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Expedia Group Q3 2022 Financial Results Teleconference. My name is Nadia, and I'll be the operator for today's call. (Operator Instructions)

大家好，歡迎參加 Expedia Group 2022 年第三季度財務業績電話會議。我叫 Nadia，我將擔任今天電話的接線員。 （操作員說明）

For opening remarks, I will turn the call over to SVP, Corporate Development, Strategy and Investor Relations, Harshit Vaish. Please go ahead.

對於開場白，我將把電話轉給負責企業發展、戰略和投資者關係的高級副總裁 Harshit Vaish。請繼續。

Good afternoon, and welcome to Expedia Group's earnings call for the third quarter of 2022 that ended September 30. I'm pleased to be joined on the call today by our CEO, Peter Kern; and our CFO, Julie Whalen. The following discussion, including responses to your questions, reflects management's view as of today, November 3, 2022 only. We do not undertake any obligation to update or revise this information.

下午好，歡迎參加 Expedia Group 於 9 月 30 日結束的 2022 年第三季度財報電話會議。我很高興今天與我們的首席執行官 Peter Kern 一起參加電話會議。還有我們的首席財務官 Julie Whalen。以下討論（包括對您的問題的回答）僅反映了管理層截至今天（2022 年 11 月 3 日）的觀點。我們不承擔任何更新或修改此信息的義務。

As always, some of the statements made on today's call are forward-looking, typically preceded by words such as we plan, we expect, we believe, we anticipate, we are optimistic or confident that or similar statements. Please refer to today's earnings release and the company's filings with the SEC for information about factors, which could cause our actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements.

與往常一樣，在今天的電話會議上做出的一些陳述是前瞻性的，通常在前面加上我們計劃、我們預期、我們相信、我們預期、我們對此感到樂觀或有信心或類似的陳述。有關可能導致我們的實際結果與這些前瞻性陳述大不相同的因素的信息，請參閱今天的收益發布和公司向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件。

You will find reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures discussed today in our earnings release, which is posted on the company's Investor Relations website at ir.expediagroup.com. And I encourage you to consistently visit our IR website for other important information. Unless otherwise stated, any reference to expenses exclude stock-based compensation.

您將在我們的收益報告中找到非 GAAP 措施與今天討論的最具可比性的 GAAP 措施的對賬，該報告發佈在公司的投資者關係網站 ir.expediagroup.com 上。我鼓勵您始終訪問我們的 IR 網站以獲取其他重要信息。除非另有說明，否則任何提及費用均不包括基於股票的補償。

And with that, let me turn the call over to Peter.

有了這個，讓我把電話轉給彼得。

Thank you, Harshit. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. Before we get started with the update on the quarter, I'd like to formally welcome our new CFO, Julie Whalen to her first earnings call. I'm excited to add Julie to our leadership team. During her 10 years as CFO at Williams Sonoma, she helped drive significant growth in the business and in shareholder returns. I've also worked alongside Julie on our Board since 2019 and she just Chaired our Audit Committee since 2020. So she comes with a great sense of our strategic priorities and what we're trying to achieve. I look forward to the expertise she can bring to our finance, board and across our entire company.

謝謝你，哈什特。大家下午好，感謝您今天加入我們。在我們開始更新本季度之前，我想正式歡迎我們的新首席財務官 Julie Whalen 參加她的第一次財報電話會議。我很高興將 Julie 添加到我們的領導團隊中。在她擔任 Williams Sonoma 首席財務官的 10 年間，她幫助推動了業務和股東回報的顯著增長。自 2019 年以來，我還與 Julie 一起在我們的董事會工作，她自 2020 年起擔任我們的審計委員會主席。因此，她對我們的戰略重點和我們正在努力實現的目標非常了解。我期待她能為我們的財務、董事會和整個公司帶來專業知識。

Now moving into the quarter. We were very pleased with our record-breaking performance in the third quarter. We delivered our highest ever quarterly revenue and adjusted EBITDA, the latter exceeding $1 billion for the first time in our history. We also delivered record third quarter lodging gross bookings. Despite some macroeconomic uncertainty and some short-term impact from Hurricane Ian, travel demand has remained strong and ADRs remain substantially elevated relative to pre-pandemic levels.

現在進入季度。我們對第三季度創紀錄的業績感到非常滿意。我們實現了有史以來最高的季度收入和調整後的 EBITDA，後者在我們的歷史上首次超過 10 億美元。我們還實現了創紀錄的第三季度住宿總預訂量。儘管存在一些宏觀經濟不確定性和颶風伊恩帶來的一些短期影響，但旅行需求仍然強勁，ADR 相對於大流行前的水平仍然大幅上升。

This quarter, we also further delevered our balance sheet, which put us in a position to resume buying back our stock, which we continue to believe is highly undervalued. Going forward, we expect to continue to reduce leverage and return capital to our shareholders.

本季度，我們還進一步去槓桿化了我們的資產負債表，這使我們能夠恢復回購我們的股票，我們仍然認為該股票被高度低估。展望未來，我們預計將繼續降低杠桿率並向股東返還資本。

Now moving to the B2C side of our business. As we discussed before, our goal is to use great product innovation and unmatched membership benefits to drive more engagement with our customers and ultimately higher lifetime value from those customers. And the 2 biggest drivers of lifetime value are improving loyalty membership and app usage. I'm proud to announce that in Q3, we reached an all-time high in active loyalty members, surpassing 2019 levels in August. New Expedia customers that became loyalty members in the quarter grew by nearly 50% versus third quarter 2019 and the rollout of verified loyalty program One Key is on track for next year, which will be a big catalyst for continued membership growth.

現在轉向我們業務的 B2C 方面。正如我們之前所討論的，我們的目標是利用出色的產品創新和無與倫比的會員福利來推動與客戶的更多互動，並最終提高這些客戶的終身價值。終身價值的兩大驅動因素是提高忠誠度會員和應用程序使用率。我很自豪地宣布，在第三季度，我們的活躍忠誠度會員數量達到了歷史新高，超過了 8 月的 2019 年水平。與 2019 年第三季度相比，本季度成為忠誠度會員的新 Expedia 客戶增長了近 50%，經過驗證的忠誠度計劃 One Key 將於明年推出，這將成為會員持續增長的重要催化劑。

Our app downloads continue to be strong as well, but even more importantly the downloaded app usage is at an all-time high with quarterly active app users increasing nearly 40% versus 2019. And in the quarter, we continue to see almost 2/3 of our gross bookings result from direct traffic. We are also continuing to see leverage versus 2019 when we compare our all-up marketing spend against booked gross profit. And as a reminder, this spend includes direct marketing, but also discounting our loyalty spend, which are recorded as contra revenues.

我們的應用下載量也繼續保持強勁，但更重要的是，下載的應用使用量創歷史新高，季度活躍應用用戶與 2019 年相比增加了近 40%。在本季度，我們繼續看到近 2/3我們的總預訂量來自直接流量。當我們將全部營銷支出與預定毛利進行比較時，我們也繼續看到與 2019 年相比的槓桿率。提醒一下，這筆支出包括直接營銷，還包括我們的忠誠度支出折扣，這些支出被記錄為對沖收入。

In terms of our marketing mix, we have been shifting towards longer-term channels, including app downloads and other methods to capture traveler intent outside of classic performance channels. These longer-term marketing investments, including loyalty and brand are helping us build a larger base of long-term high-value customers. But as important as marketing is, we are ultimately marketing a product, and the product has to be great. So most of our energy is going into product innovation to build the best customer experience we can with the most customer benefits to drive loyalty and consumer love.

就我們的營銷組合而言，我們一直在轉向長期渠道，包括應用下載和其他方法，以在經典績效渠道之外捕捉旅行者的意圖。這些長期營銷投資，包括忠誠度和品牌，正在幫助我們建立更大的長期高價值客戶群。但與營銷一樣重要的是，我們最終是在營銷一種產品，而且產品必須很棒。因此，我們的大部分精力都投入到了產品創新上，以建立最好的客戶體驗，並以最大的客戶利益來推動忠誠度和消費者的喜愛。

Among our recent successes, we have introduced exciting new product features, including price tracking, trip boards and smart shopping, all of which are designed to engage customers, to inform customers and to ensure they are finding the right product at the right time at the right price.

在我們最近的成功中，我們引入了令人興奮的新產品功能，包括價格跟踪、旅行板和智能購物，所有這些都旨在吸引客戶、通知客戶並確保他們在正確的時間在正確的時間找到正確的產品。合適的價格。

So just to remind you, our flight price tracking feature, which we launched earlier this year, has been a great engagement tool. Since launch, we have seen exceptionally high notification open rates, which demonstrates the value that our customers see in this tool. This feature is currently live on our app in the U.S. and is on track for global rollout in the first quarter of 2023.

因此，提醒您一下，我們今年早些時候推出的航班價格跟踪功能一直是一個很好的參與工具。自推出以來，我們看到了異常高的通知打開率，這證明了我們的客戶在此工具中看到的價值。此功能目前在我們在美國的應用程序上運行，並有望在 2023 年第一季度在全球推出。

In Q3, we launched trip boards on Brand Expedia, where users can save their favorite lodging and activities and share and collaborate on trip details. This feature not only increased conversion, but has helped us expand our base of customers through sharing with family and friends. In the first 2 months since its broader launch, we saw trip board users have twice the repeat visit rate, they were twice as likely to purchase multiple products, and most importantly, they transacted at 4x the conversion rate versus non-users.

在第三季度，我們在品牌 Expedia 上推出了旅行板，用戶可以在其中保存他們最喜歡的住宿和活動，並分享和協作旅行細節。此功能不僅提高了轉化率，而且通過與家人和朋友分享幫助我們擴大了客戶群。在更廣泛推出後的前 2 個月中，我們看到trip board 用戶的重複訪問率是兩倍，他們購買多種產品的可能性是其兩倍，最重要的是，與非用戶相比，他們的交易轉化率是非用戶的 4 倍。

And as for smart shopping, which is a tool that really helps travelers comparing and choosing between available rooms for a given property, we began leveraging machine learning recommendations to better match our customers with the right products and options. This has led to better consumer outcomes, more premium product sales for our partners and ultimately higher value transactions for us.

至於智能購物，它是一種真正幫助旅行者比較和選擇給定物業的可用房間的工具，我們開始利用機器學習建議來更好地為我們的客戶匹配正確的產品和選項。這為我們的合作夥伴帶來了更好的消費者成果、更多優質的產品銷售，並最終為我們帶來了更高價值的交易。

In addition to these new features, during Q3, we finished the migration of the Hotels.com front end on to the Expedia platform, which allowed us to accelerate our optimization programs across our entire conventional lodging portfolio. While we are just getting started, the ability to test and deploy faster across one platform is already driving higher customer conversion, better customer experience and improved sign-ups to our loyalty program.

除了這些新功能之外，在第三季度，我們還完成了 Hotels.com 前端向 Expedia 平台的遷移，這使我們能夠加速整個傳統住宿產品組合的優化計劃。雖然我們才剛剛起步，但在一個平台上更快地進行測試和部署的能力已經推動了更高的客戶轉化率、更好的客戶體驗和改進了我們忠誠度計劃的註冊。

So overall, we've seen a great reception from customers on these new features and benefits. And for us, it has led to increased engagement, better conversion and higher revenue per customer. I'm really excited about the success we have seen so far, and we have a bunch of new features in the pipeline and a terrific opportunity to roll out all of these features worldwide.

總的來說，我們已經看到客戶對這些新功能和好處的好評。對我們來說，它提高了參與度、更好的轉化率和更高的每位客戶收入。到目前為止，我對我們所取得的成功感到非常興奮，並且我們有許多新功能正在籌備中，並且是在全球範圍內推出所有這些功能的絕佳機會。

Moving on to the B2B front. We remain bullish on this massive opportunity and excited about our expanding role in the travel ecosystem. Everything we are doing on the main technology stack for our B2C products, will have benefits that inure to the B2B business as well as a ton of work we are doing specific to the B2B business that will lead to new products, new partners and new revenue streams.

繼續前進到 B2B 前沿。我們仍然看好這個巨大的機會，並對我們在旅游生態系統中不斷擴大的作用感到興奮。我們在 B2C 產品的主要技術堆棧上所做的一切，都將為 B2B 業務帶來好處，以及我們為 B2B 業務所做的大量工作，這些工作將帶來新產品、新合作夥伴和新收入流。

In the third quarter, B2B continued to demonstrate success with growth across our key product lines as we won wallet share with many of our existing partners, driven by our expanded capabilities and improved product offerings. As excited as we are about the momentum in our existing business, we continue to build pilot and deploy new products and services for our Open World platform. This quarter, we signed the first pilot partner for our best-in-class fraud prevention product. And next year, we plan to continue to deliver more new commercial products and services. I'm really excited about what's on our road map for B2B and the reception we've been getting from the industry.

在第三季度，在我們擴展的能力和改進的產品供應的推動下，我們贏得了許多現有合作夥伴的錢包份額，B2B 繼續展示我們關鍵產品線的成功增長。儘管我們對現有業務的發展勢頭感到興奮，但我們將繼續為我們的開放世界平台建立試點並部署新產品和服務。本季度，我們為我們一流的欺詐預防產品簽署了第一個試點合作夥伴。明年，我們計劃繼續提供更多新的商業產品和服務。我對我們 B2B 路線圖上的內容以及我們從行業中得到的反饋感到非常興奮。

So to sum it all up, we delivered another record quarter of results, rolled out more products, features and member benefits and continue to add significantly to our member base and our app usage, all of which will be great for our future performance and build the base that we are looking for to grow in the future. So all in all, we're feeling really good about our progress, not least of all because of the phenomenal team of people we have assembled, to drive all of our acceleration.

綜上所述，我們實現了又一個創紀錄的季度業績，推出了更多的產品、功能和會員福利，並繼續顯著增加我們的會員群和我們的應用程序使用量，所有這些都將有助於我們未來的表現和構建我們正在尋找未來發展的基礎。所以總而言之，我們對自己的進步感覺非常好，尤其是因為我們組建了一支非凡的團隊，推動了我們所有的加速。

And with that, I will pass it off to one of our newest, Julie.

有了這個，我會把它交給我們最新的一位朱莉。

Thanks, Peter, and hello, everyone. I'm excited to be here to be a part of the team. As you may or may not know, I've been on the Board here since 2019. So I've had the opportunity to develop a great deal of respect and admiration for the leadership team and the growth strategy that the company is executing against. And I know there is significant opportunity for growth and profitability ahead of us, and I look forward to helping the company to deliver against these growth initiatives and to maximize shareholder returns.

謝謝，彼得，大家好。我很高興能來到這裡成為團隊的一員。您可能知道也可能不知道，我自 2019 年以來一直在董事會任職。因此，我有機會對領導團隊和公司正在執行的增長戰略產生了極大的尊重和欽佩。而且我知道我們面前有很大的增長和盈利機會，我期待幫助公司實現這些增長計劃並最大限度地提高股東回報。

As it relates specifically to the third quarter, we are pleased to see the continued momentum in our business, resulting in revenue and profitability to levels we haven't seen before, which clearly speaks to the early success we are seeing with our initiatives to drive long-term profitable growth.

由於它與第三季度特別相關，我們很高興看到我們業務的持續發展勢頭，使收入和盈利能力達到我們以前從未見過的水平，這清楚地說明了我們在推動推動舉措方面所看到的早期成功長期盈利增長。

As far as the details regarding our financial performance for the quarter, similar to previous earnings calls, I will discuss our revenue-related and adjusted EBITDA growth metrics both on a reported and like-for-like basis. The like-for-like growth rates excludes contribution from Egencia, Amex GBT and the non-lodging elements of our Chase relationship. And as a reminder, on November 1, 2021, we completed the sale of Egencia, and our EPS business entered into a 10-year lodging supply agreement with Amex GBT. We believe these like-for-like numbers are helpful in assessing the performance of our business.

至於我們本季度財務業績的細節，與之前的財報電話會議類似，我將在報告和類似的基礎上討論我們與收入相關的和調整後的 EBITDA 增長指標。同類增長率不包括易信達、美國運通 GBT 和我們大通關係的非住宿因素的貢獻。提醒一下，2021 年 11 月 1 日，我們完成了對易信達的出售，我們的 EPS 業務與 Amex GBT 簽訂了為期 10 年的住宿供應協議。我們相信這些同類數字有助於評估我們的業務表現。

It is also important to note that our third quarter growth rates as compared to 2019 were negatively impacted by FX headwinds of approximately 200 basis points to gross bookings and revenue and 300 basis points to adjusted EBITDA.

同樣重要的是要注意，與 2019 年相比，我們的第三季度增長率受到外匯逆風的負面影響，總預訂量和收入約為 200 個基點，調整後的 EBITDA 約為 300 個基點。

Moving on to the gross booking trends in the quarter. Total gross bookings were down 11% on a reported basis and down 2% on a like-for-like basis versus the third quarter of 2019. Total gross bookings for the quarter were impacted primarily by the industry-wide slowdown we saw in early July. However, since early July, we saw trends meaningfully improved, primarily driven by lodging bookings growth, our largest line of business, with continued ADR strength.

繼續討論本季度的總預訂趨勢。與 2019 年第三季度相比，報告的總預訂量下降了 11%，同比下降了 2%。本季度的總預訂量主要受到我們在 7 月初看到的全行業放緩的影響.然而，自 7 月初以來，我們看到趨勢顯著改善，主要是由於我們最大的業務線住宿預訂增長以及 ADR 持續強勁。

Total lodging gross bookings, which were the highest Q3 on record, grew 5% on a reported basis and grew 7% on a like-for-like basis versus Q3 2019. The cadence throughout the quarter was consistent with the trends in total gross bookings. Lodging gross bookings on a reported basis was down 1% in July and the rest of the quarter rebounded to up 9% in August and up 6% in September, which was impacted by Hurricane Ian. October was also impacted by the hurricane, but was still up approximately 5%. If not for the hurricane, both September and October would have been relative in line with August.

與 2019 年第三季度相比，第三季度的總住宿總預訂量增長 5%，同比增長 7%。整個季度的節奏與總預訂量的趨勢一致.受颶風伊恩的影響，7 月份報告的住宿總預訂量下降了 1%，本季度剩餘時間在 8 月份反彈至 9% 和 9 月份增長 6%。 10 月也受到颶風的影響，但仍上漲了約 5%。如果不是颶風，9 月和 10 月都會與 8 月相對。

Overall, we are pleased to see strong demand expand into the fourth quarter as consumers continue to prioritize travel spend over other discretionary spending. And while it is still early in the quarter, we are seeing total lodging bookings for stays expected to occur in the balance of the year and into 2023, continuing to outpace 2019 levels.

總體而言，我們很高興看到強勁的需求擴大到第四季度，因為消費者繼續優先考慮旅行支出而不是其他可自由支配的支出。儘管仍處於本季度初期，但我們看到預計將在今年餘下時間和 2023 年出現的住宿預訂總預訂量繼續超過 2019 年的水平。

Moving to the key financial metrics in the P&L, starting with total revenue. Revenue of $3.6 billion was up 2% on a reported basis and up 5% on a like-for-like basis versus Q3 2019. It was great to see another quarter positive and sequentially improving revenue growth. Our revenue margin also improved to 15% for the quarter or up approximately 190 basis points versus Q3 2019. This revenue strength resulted from a mix shift towards our lodging business, including our higher ADR Vrbo business.

轉向損益表中的關鍵財務指標，從總收入開始。與 2019 年第三季度相比，36 億美元的收入在報告的基礎上增長了 2%，在同類基礎上增長了 5%。很高興看到又一個季度實現了積極的增長，並連續提高了收入增長。我們本季度的收入利潤率也提高到 15%，或比 2019 年第三季度增長約 190 個基點。這種收入優勢是由於我們向住宿業務的混合轉變，包括我們更高的 ADR Vrbo 業務。

Cost of sales in the third quarter was $451 million, which was down 17% versus 2019, driven by cost reductions, primarily resulting from our divestiture of Egencia and from ongoing efficiencies across our customer support operations, resulting from the automation initiatives we have been implementing over the past couple of years.

第三季度的銷售成本為 4.51 億美元，與 2019 年相比下降了 17%，這主要是由於我們剝離了易信達，以及由於我們一直在實施的自動化計劃而在我們的客戶支持業務中不斷提高效率。在過去的幾年裡。

Direct sales and marketing expense in the third quarter was $1.5 billion, which was up 8% versus 2019, which includes spend with a longer-term return profile to drive more profitable future growth. As a reminder, we are focused on acquiring high lifetime value customers. As a result, we are allocating more marketing dollars on channels that have a longer-term return profile such as brand awareness, loyalty and paid app installs, which, as Peter mentioned, are already beginning to drive growth in loyalty members and app usage.

第三季度的直接銷售和營銷費用為 15 億美元，與 2019 年相比增長 8%，其中包括具有長期回報特徵的支出，以推動更有利可圖的未來增長。提醒一下，我們專注於獲得高終身價值的客戶。因此，我們將更多的營銷資金分配給具有長期回報特徵的渠道，例如品牌知名度、忠誠度和付費應用安裝量，正如彼得所說，這些已經開始推動忠誠度會員和應用使用量的增長。

Our sales and marketing expense is also impacted by an increase in commissions paid to our partners, which is a direct reflection of the accelerating growth we continue to see in our core B2B business. Overhead expenses were $569 million, down $144 million or 20% versus the third quarter 2019. We continue to remain disciplined on our cost structure and are always looking for ways to drive more efficiency. Overhead expenses slightly increased from the second quarter, approximately $19 million or 3%, primarily associated with our ongoing focus on investing in top talent across our product and technology teams to help accelerate our various platform initiatives, which we believe will ultimately drive future top line growth and margin expansion.

我們的銷售和營銷費用也受到支付給合作夥伴的佣金增加的影響，這直接反映了我們在核心 B2B 業務中繼續看到的加速增長。管理費用為 5.69 億美元，與 2019 年第三季度相比下降了 1.44 億美元或 20%。我們繼續嚴格控製成本結構，並一直在尋找提高效率的方法。間接費用較第二季度略有增加，約為 1900 萬美元或 3%，這主要與我們持續關注投資於我們的產品和技術團隊的頂尖人才以幫助加速我們的各種平台計劃有關，我們相信這將最終推動未來的收入增長增長和利潤率擴張。

These results with another quarter of strong revenue and expense discipline allowed us to deliver our highest quarter of profitability on record. Adjusted EBITDA grew 18% versus third quarter 2019 and grew 20% on a like-for-like basis to $1.1 billion. The adjusted EBITDA margin was nearly 30%, an expansion of approximately 420 basis points over the third quarter of 2019 on a reported basis.

這些結果加上另一個季度的強勁收入和支出紀律，使我們能夠實現有史以來最高的季度盈利能力。調整後 EBITDA 與 2019 年第三季度相比增長 18%，同比增長 20% 至 11 億美元。調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率接近 30%，比 2019 年第三季度報告的基礎上擴大了約 420 個基點。

Free cash flow was negative $1.2 billion in the third quarter and over $200 million improvement over prior year due to higher EBITDA levels. As a reminder, the third quarter is a negative free cash flow quarter due to the seasonality of business. Year-to-date, our free cash flow remained strong at a positive $3.1 billion, more than double where we were year-to-date in 2019.

由於較高的 EBITDA 水平，第三季度自由現金流為負 12 億美元，比去年同期改善了 2 億多美元。提醒一下，由於業務的季節性，第三季度是一個負的自由現金流季度。年初至今，我們的自由現金流保持強勁，為 31 億美元，是 2019 年年初至今的兩倍多。

On the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with strong liquidity of $7.1 billion from both our unrestricted cash and our undrawn revolving line of credit, which provides us with ample access to cash to operate the business. This quarter, we continue to focus on delevering our balance sheet, improving our leverage ratios and solidifying our investment-grade rating. As a result, in September, we redeemed an additional $500 million of our senior notes as part of a tender offer, resulting in a total repayment of debt and preferred equity of $3.4 billion over the last 18 months.

在資產負債表上，我們以不受限制的現金和未提取的循環信貸額度提供了 71 億美元的強勁流動性，這為我們提供了充足的現金來運營業務。本季度，我們將繼續專注於去槓桿化我們的資產負債表、提高我們的槓桿率和鞏固我們的投資級評級。因此，在 9 月，作為要約收購的一部分，我們額外贖回了 5 億美元的優先票據，從而在過去 18 個月中總共償還了 34 億美元的債務和優先股。

These balance sheet actions, along with our significant growth and adjusted EBITDA, has enabled us the additional flexibility to begin returning capital to shareholders again. As such, we repurchased approximately $200 million or 2 million shares through October and have approximately 21 million shares remaining under our existing authorization for future repurchases.

這些資產負債表行動，以及我們的顯著增長和調整後的 EBITDA，使我們能夠更加靈活地開始再次向股東返還資本。因此，截至 10 月，我們回購了約 2 億美元或 200 萬股股票，並且在我們現有的授權下剩餘約 2100 萬股股票用於未來回購。

As we move forward, given our strong liquidity, our confidence in the business and the fact our stock continues to be highly undervalued, we expect to further delever the balance sheet and continue returning capital to shareholders in the form of share buybacks.

在我們前進的過程中，鑑於我們強大的流動性、我們對業務的信心以及我們的股票繼續被高度低估的事實，我們預計將進一步去槓桿化資產負債表，並繼續以股票回購的形式向股東返還資本。

In summary, our third quarter results demonstrate some of the early wins we are starting to see from the transformation of the business and the success of our strategic growth initiatives. These early wins give us confidence that a huge opportunity in front of us to drive long-term profitable growth and to maximize shareholder value. And I couldn't be more thrilled to be a part of this company and this leadership team that we unlock the significant opportunity for growth together. And I look forward to getting to know all of you in the travel investment community soon.

總而言之，我們第三季度的業績證明了我們從業務轉型和戰略增長計劃的成功中開始看到的一些早期勝利。這些早期的勝利讓我們相信，我們面前有一個巨大的機會來推動長期盈利增長和最大化股東價值。我很高興能成為這家公司和這個領導團隊的一員，我們共同開啟了重要的增長機會。我期待很快在旅遊投資界認識你們所有人。

And with that, I would now like to open the call for questions. Thank you.

有了這個，我現在想打開提問電話。謝謝你。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question today goes to Eric Sheridan of Goldman Sachs.

（操作員說明）我們今天的第一個問題是高盛的 Eric Sheridan。

Maybe 2, if I can. First, in terms of the broader end demand environment, I think there continues to be a lot of investor questions about levels of ADR, as you look out through the December quarter and into next year or elements of how you're thinking about the booking windows more broadly. Any sense you can give us on the way you're thinking about what you see in the business today against elements of potentially more volatile macroeconomic environment as we move into next year? That would be number one.

也許2，如果可以的話。首先，就更廣泛的最終需求環境而言，我認為投資者對 ADR 水平仍然存在很多疑問，因為您從 12 月季度到明年，或者您如何考慮預訂的因素窗戶更廣泛。隨著我們進入明年，您可以在考慮您今天在業務中看到的情況與可能更加動蕩的宏觀經濟環境的因素的方式上給我們任何感覺？那將是第一名。

And I appreciate all the color on the capital return. Are there any guardrails we should be keeping in mind around levels of gross debt or net debt that you want to sort of keep front of mind for investors in terms of what might balance prudence versus capital return over the next couple of years?

我很欣賞資本回報的所有色彩。我們應該牢記圍繞總債務或淨債務水平的任何護欄，您希望在未來幾年內如何平衡審慎與資本回報方面讓投資者牢記在心？

Thanks, Eric. I'll take the first part first. I think this is consistent with a lot of what you've heard from the travel industry over the last couple of weeks based on what we've seen. But there really haven't been any material signs of falloff in demand or ADR for that matter in the world. There is a little bit of geographical mix change. APAC sort of coming back now with the opening of Japan and a few other markets.

謝謝，埃里克。我先講第一部分。根據我們所見，我認為這與您在過去幾週從旅遊業聽到的許多情況一致。但在全球範圍內，確實沒有任何需求或 ADR 下降的實質性跡象。有一點地域組合變化。隨著日本和其他一些市場的開放，亞太地區現在正在回歸。

So there's a little balanced shift issues and there could be ADR change because of mix for certain players, including us. But there has been no real let-up in ADR, and there has been no real let-up in demand. We still see pacings for the rest of this year and next year considerably above where we were in 2019. So I think there's a lot we all think about and watch CNBC or whatever. But so far, there's really no evidence to suggest there is some bigger macroeconomic thing happening.

因此存在一些平衡的轉變問題，並且由於某些參與者（包括我們）的混合，ADR 可能會發生變化。但 ADR 並沒有真正的放緩，需求也沒有真正的放緩。我們仍然看到今年和明年剩餘時間的節奏大大高於我們在 2019 年的水平。所以我認為我們都有很多想法和觀看 CNBC 或其他內容。但到目前為止，確實沒有證據表明正在發生一些更大的宏觀經濟事件。

As far as our capital allocation, I would just say that, first of all, we're pleased that we're in a much stronger position than we've been in the past. We've seen improving profitability. Obviously, I mentioned that we at record levels of EBITDA, has enabled us to generate strong cash flow, strong free cash flow, has enabled us to delever more on the balance sheet and resume our share buyback program, which we stopped a little bit.

至於我們的資本配置，我只想說，首先，我們很高興我們處於比過去更強大的位置。我們已經看到盈利能力的提高。顯然，我提到我們處於創紀錄的 EBITDA 水平，使我們能夠產生強勁的現金流、強勁的自由現金流，使我們能夠在資產負債表上進一步去槓桿化並恢復我們的股票回購計劃，我們稍微停止了這一計劃。

And so going forward, given the strength in our position, certainly, this enables us to continue to delever and buy back more stock, which we think is the right thing to do. Certainly, by delevering on the balance sheet, it fortifies our investment-grade rating and gives us more flexibility to be able to return more to shareholders, which we think is the right thing to do, certainly given the fact that we are very confident in the future growth of our business, that our stock is highly undervalued, and we have strong liquidity, and we have 21 million shares remaining on our existing share repurchase authorization to do buybacks. So obviously, with that in mind, we think it's the right thing to do going forward.

所以展望未來，鑑於我們的實力，當然，這使我們能夠繼續去槓桿化並回購更多股票，我們認為這是正確的做法。當然，通過資產負債表上的去槓桿化，它加強了我們的投資級評級，並為我們提供了更大的靈活性，能夠為股東提供更多回報，我們認為這是正確的做法，當然鑑於我們非常有信心我們業務的未來增長，我們的股票被高度低估，我們擁有強大的流動性，我們現有的股票回購授權中剩餘的 2100 萬股股票可以進行回購。很明顯，考慮到這一點，我們認為這是正確的做法。

And the next question goes to Naved Khan of Truist.

下一個問題是 Truist 的 Naved Khan。

Two questions. So first, maybe just on the expense side of things. Given the uncertain macro, how are you thinking about growing the fixed expense over the next 12 months or so? And then maybe just on the -- another sort of macro question. Are you seeing any kind of sort of consumer demand shift in terms of either trade-downs or maybe consumers sort of looking to book maybe drive-to versus fly-to kind of destinations?

兩個問題。所以首先，也許只是在費用方面。鑑於不確定的宏觀環境，您如何考慮在未來 12 個月左右增加固定費用？然後也許只是關於 - 另一種宏觀問題。您是否看到任何形式的消費者需求發生變化，無論是折價還是消費者希望預訂可能是開車前往或飛往目的地的目的地？

Yes. Thanks, Naved. So on the expense side, I would say, as Julie mentioned, we've been trying to hold the line pretty clearly. Obviously, there's been inflation over the last few years, particularly in people and we've certainly invested in people to build all the technology that we want, et cetera. But as I've also mentioned before, we see plenty of opportunity ahead to become more efficient.

是的。謝謝，納維德。所以在費用方面，我想說，正如朱莉所提到的，我們一直在努力保持清晰。顯然，過去幾年出現了通貨膨脹，尤其是在人員方面，我們當然已經投資於人員來構建我們想要的所有技術等等。但正如我之前提到的，我們看到了很多提高效率的機會。

So we will keep a pretty tight hand on fixed expenses going into next year. And again, as technology delivers, we think there's lots of opportunity to continue to become more efficient. We think we can drive growth certainly without much more fixed investment and there's more opportunities for efficiency than there are for increased investments. So we are pushing hard to get across the line on a number of technology fronts. We have -- we've built up, in some cases, capacity -- human capacity to do some of that work. But overall, we think that's a general directional move towards greater efficiency. So will hold the line, but we expect longer term more efficiency coming out of the business.

因此，我們將對明年的固定費用保持相當嚴格的控制。同樣，隨著技術的發展，我們認為有很多機會可以繼續提高效率。我們認為我們當然可以在沒有更多固定投資的情況下推動增長，而且與增加投資相比，提高效率的機會更多。因此，我們正在努力爭取在多個技術領域取得突破。我們已經——在某些情況下，我們已經建立了能力——人類的能力來完成其中的一些工作。但總的來說，我們認為這是朝著更高效率邁進的大方向。所以會堅持下去，但我們預計從長遠來看，該業務會帶來更高的效率。

And then as far as the often-asked question about consumer demand, the answer is no. We have not seen trade-downs. We have not seen -- we have not seen any major moves, shifts in demand patterns. Obviously, putting hurricane aside, which (inaudible) and things like that, it's really been a very steady, very strong demand picture. As you know, we've been differently selective about the traffic and the consumers we're looking to get and how we're building them up into long-term valuable customers. But overall macro demand seems quite strong still. And as I said, the pacings for next year are strong. So a lot to still be filled in next year. But so far, we haven't seen any of it.

然後就消費者需求的常見問題而言，答案是否定的。我們還沒有看到降價交易。我們還沒有看到——我們沒有看到任何重大舉措，需求模式的轉變。顯然，將颶風（聽不清）和類似的事情放在一邊，這確實是一個非常穩定、非常強勁的需求圖景。如您所知，我們對流量和我們希望獲得的消費者以及我們如何將他們培養成長期有價值的客戶有著不同的選擇。但總體宏觀需求似乎仍然相當強勁。正如我所說，明年的步伐很強勁。所以明年還要補很多。但到目前為止，我們還沒有看到任何一個。

And the next question goes to Lee Horowitz of Deutsche Bank.

下一個問題是德意志銀行的 Lee Horowitz。

Maybe one on sales and marketing. We continue to see that deleverage a little bit, say, quarter-on-quarter and versus '19 as a percentage of bookings, given your investments in longer-dated ROI initiatives. I guess my question here is, what sort of time frame should we be thinking about it in order to see the ROI on these investments flow through the P&L and begin to see some of the sales and marketing leverage and some of the initiatives that you've taken across the sales and marketing organization to drive leverage longer-term (inaudible)?

也許是關於銷售和營銷的。考慮到您對長期投資回報計劃的投資，我們繼續看到去槓桿化程度有所下降，例如季度環比和與 19 年相比，作為預訂的百分比。我想我的問題是，我們應該考慮什麼樣的時間框架才能看到這些投資的投資回報率通過損益表流動，並開始看到一些銷售和營銷槓桿以及你的一些舉措是否已通過銷售和營銷組織來推動長期槓桿作用（聽不清）？

Yes. Thanks, Lee. So I think the answer to that is we are already seeing benefit, but we are also investing more benefit back into long-term ROI. So you're sort of not seeing the net benefit, if you will. But as -- we believe that as we build that base of customers, as I mentioned, our membership base is now high -- our active membership base is higher than it's ever been and growing faster than it ever has, our app usage likewise. And that all gives us the ability to build more direct traffic, which gives us the ability to invest in driving more direct traffic.

是的。謝謝，李。因此，我認為答案是我們已經看到了收益，但我們也在將更多收益投入到長期投資回報率中。所以如果你願意的話，你有點看不到淨收益。但是，正如我所提到的，我們相信，隨著我們建立客戶基礎，我們的會員基礎現在很高 - 我們的活躍會員基礎比以往任何時候都高，並且增長速度比以往任何時候都快，我們的應用程序使用情況也是如此。這一切都讓我們有能力建立更多的直接流量，這讓我們有能力投資於推動更多的直接流量。

Now those lines will start to separate over time. And we will get, we believe, the margin expansion and the incremental leverage. But right now, we're still -- we've still been refilling the bucket to drive, in essence, use this base of high LTV customers to drive as much or more demand that we used to get just by buying traffic out of the marketplace and having them be nonmembers and anonymous customers.

現在這些線將隨著時間的推移開始分離。我們相信，我們將獲得利潤擴張和增量槓桿。但是現在，我們仍然——我們仍然在補充水桶，從本質上講，利用這個高 LTV 客戶群來推動我們過去僅僅通過購買流量獲得的更多或更多的需求。市場並讓他們成為非會員和匿名客戶。

So it's really a transition we're going through, and we think that separation will come, but we are continuing and will continue in the fourth quarter to invest in these longer-dated return opportunities like apps, et cetera. So we think we'll continue to see it. We think we're already seeing it, but it's hard to see from the outside. You'll see the separation over time as we continue to build that base of members higher and higher and higher.

因此，這確實是我們正在經歷的過渡，我們認為分離將會到來，但我們將繼續並將在第四季度繼續投資這些長期回報機會，如應用程序等。所以我們認為我們會繼續看到它。我們認為我們已經看到了它，但很難從外部看到。隨著我們繼續建立越來越高的成員基礎，隨著時間的推移，您會看到這種分離。

And then as to your question on more broadly, how that affects us? I guess, going forward, I think we will watch that. We put the money back in. But we expect to see expanding leverage in this as we go forward. I would just add that we have the loyalty program 1Q rolling out next year, that will expand loyalty to many customers who weren't in the program before. We think that's going to drive a lot of business, but it will again drive a little bit of noise as we try to help you figure out where the leverage is.

然後關於你更廣泛的問題，這對我們有何影響？我想，展望未來，我想我們會注意這一點。我們把錢放回去了。但隨著我們的前進，我們希望看到這方面的槓桿作用不斷擴大。我只想補充一點，我們將在明年推出 1Q 忠誠度計劃，這將擴大對許多以前未參與該計劃的客戶的忠誠度。我們認為這將推動大量業務，但當我們試圖幫助您弄清楚槓桿在哪裡時，它會再次帶來一點噪音。

So just fair warning, like it's a great opportunity. But in terms of like this linear road, it's going to be a little bumpy as we roll some of these things out, and we'll help you understand those as we go.

所以只是公平的警告，就像這是一個很好的機會。但就像這條線性道路而言，當我們推出其中一些東西時，它會有點顛簸，我們會幫助你理解這些東西。

And the next question goes to Kevin Kopelman of Cowen.

下一個問題是 Cowen 的 Kevin Kopelman。

I appreciate it. A couple of quick follow-ups there. Could you give a little bit more color on how you're thinking about the 1Q launch and the type of investment that will be needed in that launch for next year? And also, as you are thinking about app downloads in longer-term or longer-dated returns on those channels, how long is that when you are acquiring new customers through that channel? Is it 6 months? Is it a year? How are you thinking about that?

我很感激。那裡有幾個快速跟進。您能否就您如何看待第一季度的發布以及明年發布所需的投資類型提供更多的色彩？此外，當您考慮應用下載在這些渠道上的長期或長期回報時，您通過該渠道獲得新客戶需要多長時間？是6個月嗎？是一年嗎？你是怎麼想的？

Yes. I'll maybe take those in reverse, Kevin. On the -- when we think about LTV, it's over a longer horizon, it's usually 18 to 24 months. So we're not -- and as you all know, travel for many people is not a 5x a year kind of thing, it can be a twice a year or once a year kind of thing. So it does take a little longer, as I mentioned before, for some of these LTV investments to return, but that's how we think about that time line is we're sort of normalizing it over more like an 18- to 24-month period as opposed to 6 months or something like that.

是的。我可能會反過來，凱文。關於 - 當我們考慮 LTV 時，它的範圍更廣，通常是 18 到 24 個月。所以我們不是——眾所周知，對於很多人來說，旅行不是一年五次，它可以是一年兩次或一年一次。因此，正如我之前提到的，其中一些 LTV 投資確實需要更長的時間才能獲得回報，但這就是我們對時間線的看法，我們正在將其正常化，更像是 18 到 24 個月的時期而不是 6 個月或類似的時間。

And that's really the trade-off you're making in many cases, is buying that very short-term intent perhaps unprofitably versus buying long-term intent and long-term LTV, but it takes longer to pay out. So that's the trade we're making with a portion of our investment. It's not everything, obviously, but we have directed money that used to be in that short-term intent bucket into these longer-term buckets. So that's why it takes time. It's why we didn't pivot it all at once because it takes time to build those customer bases that are those high LTV customer bases, that are then paying out at higher levels than the short-term intent that we used to buy. So that's how we think about that. It's a balance, and we're constantly balancing it.

在許多情況下，這確實是您要做出的權衡，即購買非常短期的意圖可能無利可圖，而不是購買長期意圖和長期 LTV，但需要更長的時間才能支付。這就是我們用部分投資進行的交易。顯然，這不是一切，但我們已將過去存在於短期意圖桶中的資金投入到這些長期桶中。所以這就是為什麼它需要時間。這就是為什麼我們沒有立即調整它的原因，因為建立那些高 LTV 客戶群的客戶群需要時間，這些客戶群的支付水平高於我們過去購買的短期意圖。所以我們就是這麼想的。這是一種平衡，我們一直在平衡它。

As far as 1Q goes, we will launch next year. We will incorporate Vrbo customers among others into the plan. We will try to move customers who are in other brands into the brands that have loyalty. So everything -- we want everybody in the loyalty bucket. The value -- as you know, we've had many different plans of many different values. We will normalize around one single value for everything for the currency. And we think we've settled in a place that will be very good for the customers. They're gaining flexibility. They're getting the opportunity to use the value on all our products, which is highly valuable, and we know they want it.

就第一季度而言，我們將在明年推出。我們將把 Vrbo 客戶等納入計劃。我們將嘗試將其他品牌的客戶轉移到有忠誠度的品牌中。所以一切 - 我們希望每個人都在忠誠度桶中。價值——如你所知，我們有許多不同價值的不同計劃。我們將為貨幣的所有內容標準化一個單一的值。我們認為我們已經定居在一個對客戶非常有利的地方。他們正在獲得靈活性。他們有機會使用我們所有產品的價值，這是非常有價值的，我們知道他們想要它。

And yes, we will have more customers in that base. So we would expect that base to grow over time. But the short-term movements will be sort of the movements between putting Vrbo customers into the base, changing some of the platforms like the Hotels.com platform, the Sam's platform into a points platform and so forth. And so there will be some short-term puts and takes. But over time, it's something we think will grow at a rational level. It's not going to spike to some crazy number, it's not going to shrink. But it's going to -- we're going to take that capital, deploy it better across our entire customer base. And then hopefully, if it's successful, which we believe it will be, it will continue to build on itself and more people will join. And we think the economics of that are very attractive.

是的，我們將在該基地擁有更多客戶。因此，我們預計該基數會隨著時間的推移而增長。但短期的變動將是在將 Vrbo 客戶納入基礎、將某些平台（如 Hotels.com 平台、Sam's 平台）轉變為積分平台等之間的變動。所以會有一些短期的看跌期權。但隨著時間的推移，我們認為它會在合理的水平上增長。它不會飆升到某個瘋狂的數字，也不會縮小。但它會——我們將利用這筆資金，在我們的整個客戶群中更好地部署它。然後希望，如果它成功，我們相信它會成功，它將繼續建立在自己的基礎上，更多的人會加入。我們認為其經濟性非常有吸引力。

And the next question goes to Deepak Mathivanan of Wolfe Research.

下一個問題是 Wolfe Research 的 Deepak Mathivanan。

This is Zach on for Deepak. Just wanted to talk about Vrbo real quick. Just providing any maybe high-level trends you guys are seeing there? How it came out of the starter travel season and maybe expectations and due to the holiday season? And then sort of related there as well, any trends in ADRs you're seeing for Vrbo?

這是迪帕克的紮克。只是想快速談談 Vrbo。只是提供你們在那裡看到的任何可能的高級趨勢？它是如何從首發旅行季節以及可能的期望以及假期中產生的？然後也與此相關，您看到 Vrbo 的 ADR 有什麼趨勢嗎？

Yes. Thanks, Zach. I think our broad comments hold for Vrbo as well. We haven't seen a lot of ADR pressure or anything that's really noticeable. ADRs have held up very strongly and holiday demand is strong and pacing well. We did see disruption. We are -- we have a pretty good base of business in South Florida and the hurricane did some damage, which monkeyed with our September and October results. But -- and we think by now most of that, and it's never 100%, will get replaced into other properties and other spots.

是的。謝謝，扎克。我認為我們的廣泛評論也適用於 Vrbo。我們還沒有看到很多 ADR 壓力或任何真正引人注目的東西。 ADR 的表現非常強勁，假期需求強勁且節奏良好。我們確實看到了中斷。我們是——我們在南佛羅里達州有一個很好的業務基礎，颶風造成了一些破壞，這與我們 9 月和 10 月的結果相衝突。但是 - 我們認為，到目前為止，大部分（而且永遠不會 100%）將被替換到其他屬性和其他位置。

So there's a little bit of (inaudible) losing that supply for a little bit of time. But in general, we're pushing much harder into growing supply now again. We are seeing ADRs hold up. And so far, the business broadly remains strong. Again, you will see pockets of change as the world evolves, as certain -- as APAC opens up versus maybe we all worry about EMEA's economy or something like it. There may be shifts slightly. But broadly, we have not seen anything that is affecting the overall business.

因此，有一點點（聽不清）在一段時間內失去了供應。但總的來說，我們現在再次更加努力地增加供應。我們看到 ADR 保持穩定。到目前為止，該業務總體上保持強勁。同樣，隨著世界的發展，你會看到一些變化，這是肯定的——隨著亞太地區的開放，也許我們都擔心歐洲、中東和非洲的經濟或類似的事情。可能會有輕微的變化。但總的來說，我們還沒有看到任何影響整體業務的因素。

And the next question goes to Lloyd Walmsley of UBS.

下一個問題是瑞銀的勞埃德沃爾姆斯利。

Great. I wanted to go back to kind of the rollout of the integrated loyalty program and just understand the short-term trade-offs versus the long-term payback to the extent you feel like you have visibility on it. Just thinking back to the last time we saw this in 2011 and 2012, scaling up Expedia's loyalty program and globally expanding the Hotels.com program, it did seem to drive a headwind to revenue take rate.

偉大的。我想回到集成忠誠度計劃的推出，只是了解短期權衡與長期回報，直到你覺得你能看到它。回想一下我們上一次在 2011 年和 2012 年看到這種情況，擴大 Expedia 的忠誠度計劃並在全球範圍內擴展 Hotels.com 計劃，它似乎確實對收入採取率造成了不利影響。

And so with Vrbo not having a program prior to this, it would seem like it could be a take rate headwind in '23. So what kind of magnitude should we think about on that side? And then how long will it take to get that to a state where you can sort of wind back the marketing spend and reap the benefits of the rewards of that loyalty program on the positive side?

因此，由於 Vrbo 在此之前沒有程序，在 23 年這似乎是一個逆風。那麼我們應該在這方面考慮什麼樣的規模？然後需要多長時間才能達到一個可以減少營銷支出並從積極方面獲得該忠誠度計劃獎勵的好處的狀態？

Yes. Thanks, Lloyd. I think the way we think about it is we're going to balance -- we think of our portfolio of tools, including loyalty, regular way marketing, this discounting and other tools we use to drive sales. We think of that as one pool of capital that we're investing to drive (inaudible) next year's results.

是的。謝謝，勞埃德。我認為我們考慮它的方式是我們要平衡——我們考慮我們的工具組合，包括忠誠度、常規方式營銷、這種折扣和我們用來推動銷售的其他工具。我們認為這是我們為推動（聽不清）明年業績而投資的一個資本池。

And so there are some things happening, including the ramp-up of loyalty that we are balancing against other types of investments. So there is a little noise potentially, as you point out, between take rate, which is the contra revenue stuff above the line versus conventional sales and marketing below the line. But from our perspective, we look at it as one pool of capital, and we are trying to balance the investment and driving that long term.

所以發生了一些事情，包括我們正在與其他類型的投資平衡的忠誠度的提高。因此，正如您所指出的，在獲取率之間可能存在一些噪音，這是高於線的收入與低於線的傳統銷售和營銷的對比。但從我們的角度來看，我們將其視為一個資本池，我們正在努力平衡投資並推動長期發展。

We think that loyalty hook of getting all of those Vrbo members been attached to our other brands and attached to our other products is going to drive a very nice result. Now it's not instantaneous as you point out, it's not like spending on meta. It takes time. They rack up points, they wait for their next trip, whatever. But we think that's a big benefit in terms of expanding our base of customers, expanding our direct traffic, et cetera. So yes, there will be some -- there may be some, I guess, I would say, across the P&L, there may be some movement top to bottom is a little more moves into loyalty perhaps when something gets taken out in some of the perhaps direct S&M spend, but we are looking to balance that whole thing.

我們認為，讓所有這些 Vrbo 會員加入我們的其他品牌並加入我們的其他產品的忠誠度掛鉤將帶來非常好的結果。現在它不像你指出的那樣是即時的，它不像在元上花錢。這需要時間。他們累積積分，等待下一次旅行，無論如何。但我們認為這在擴大我們的客戶群、擴大我們的直接流量等方面是一個很大的好處。所以是的，會有一些——可能有一些，我想，我會說，在整個損益表中，可能會有一些從上到下的運動也許是直接的 S&M 支出，但我們正在尋求平衡整個事情。

And as we get closer to it, we will give you insight into how to think about looking at the P&L going forward. But in general, we think we will balance it out. It's just that there could be some small movements as we light up the programs and certain programs get changed from one brand to another. There may be some balance sheet adjustments for accruals and other things, noise like that. But in terms of driving the real P&L and real cash flow, we think we've got enough things to offset it and some other opportunities to expand margins at that we can pretty much absorb it and chew it up in other places and again, manage that balance as we go forward of driving these long-term investments as against the short-term ones.

隨著我們越來越接近它，我們將讓您深入了解如何看待未來的損益表。但總的來說，我們認為我們會平衡它。只是當我們點亮節目並且某些節目從一個品牌更改為另一個品牌時可能會有一些小動作。可能會針對應計項目和其他事項進行一些資產負債表調整，諸如此類的噪音。但就推動實際損益和實際現金流而言，我們認為我們有足夠的東西來抵消它以及其他一些擴大利潤率的機會，我們幾乎可以吸收它並在其他地方咀嚼它，然後再次管理在我們推動這些長期投資與短期投資之間取得平衡。

Yes. Yes, that makes sense. It seems like your take rate is below the kind of competitive environment for shorter. So that seems like one area and you could pick up for it. I don't know if that's one of the ideas, but curious anything you could share there.

是的。是的，這是有道理的。看起來你的錄取率低於那種競爭環境更短的時間。所以這似乎是一個領域，你可以接受它。我不知道這是否是其中一個想法，但很好奇你可以在那里分享的任何東西。

Yes. I think, look, we are (inaudible) our competitors. We are thoughtful about how we want to deal with that with -- for our host partners and for our consumers, there's volume trade-offs for when you increase take rates as well. So there's a bunch of things to balance, but we are looking at all of those things and have opportunity.

是的。我認為，看，我們是（聽不清）我們的競爭對手。我們對如何處理這個問題進行了深思熟慮——對於我們的主機合作夥伴和我們的消費者來說，當你提高接受率時，也會有數量上的權衡。所以有很多事情需要平衡，但我們正在考慮所有這些事情並有機會。

And the next question goes to Mark Mahaney of Evercore ISI.

下一個問題是 Evercore ISI 的 Mark Mahaney。

Two questions please. First, could you just address the issue of whether there are material share shifts going on in North America in the lodging market? And then secondly, I think you just touched briefly in the last question or 2 on Asia Pacific. To what extent have you -- just any color commentary on -- I think that's sort of the last (inaudible), so just what that recovery path looks like for that region?

請問兩個問題。首先，您能否解決北美住宿市場是否存在重大份額變化的問題？其次，我認為您在上一個問題或 2 關於亞太地區的問題中只是簡單地談到了這一點。你在多大程度上 - 只是任何顏色評論 - 我認為這是最後一次（聽不清），那麼該地區的恢復路徑是什麼樣的？

Yes, sure. Thanks, Mark. I would say to address your first question, some of what we saw in, let's call it, the middle of the summer, and I talked about some of this on our last quarterly numbers, we had -- we were moving platforms. We were doing a variety of things. We were -- and pulled back on some discounting and some other things where the competition have been very heavy. We've seen that normalize and we are -- we don't see, if anything, we think we're gaining ground, but there hasn't been a continued erosion.

是的，當然。謝謝，馬克。我想說解決你的第一個問題，我們看到的一些東西，讓我們稱之為夏季中期，我在上個季度的數據中談到了其中的一些，我們有 - 我們正在移動平台。我們做了各種各樣的事情。我們是 - 並且在競爭非常激烈的一些折扣和其他一些事情上撤回了。我們已經看到了正常化，我們 - 我們沒有看到，如果有的話，我們認為我們正在取得進展，但沒有持續的侵蝕。

And I think you can see that in the relative growth rates, although, again, we are still being more selective about the business we buy and everything else, we are stable and others have seen growth rates decline. But -- so we think the U.S. is pretty stable to slightly in our favor. And again, we believe that as we continue to build this base of business and base of members, which is largely U.S.-driven given our relative strength in the U.S. that, that starts to be a repeating underpinning of our business, that drives us up as opposed to just buying in meta, the old-fashioned way that the -- the (inaudible).

而且我認為您可以看到，在相對增長率中，儘管我們仍然對我們購買的業務和其他一切都更加挑剔，但我們是穩定的，而其他公司的增長率則有所下降。但是 - 所以我們認為美國相當穩定，對我們有利。再一次，我們相信，隨著我們繼續建立這個業務基礎和成員基礎，考慮到我們在美國的相對實力，這主要是由美國驅動的，這開始成為我們業務的重複基礎，推動我們向上與僅僅購買 meta 不同，這是一種老式的方式——（聽不清）。

So we think we're setting up quite well for that, and we like our position there. Obviously, we would have liked to not giving up some free room nights, but not all room nights are valuable and not all room nights are profitable and we don't view it as strictly a room night game. So -- but we're setting up well, and we like our position, and that noise has definitely stabilized from when we were doing all the platform transitions.

所以我們認為我們為此做好了準備，我們喜歡我們在那裡的位置。顯然，我們不希望放棄一些免費的房晚，但並非所有的房晚都是有價值的，也不是所有的房晚都是有利可圖的，我們並不認為它是嚴格意義上的房晚遊戲。所以——但是我們設置得很好，我們喜歡我們的位置，而且從我們進行所有平台轉換時開始，這種噪音肯定已經穩定下來。

As far as APAC goes, I wish it were a bigger part of our business. It's not a huge part of our business. We have a very nice B2B business there that's been largely (inaudible) closed APAC market, so as our B2B -- B2C business. And our B2C business, like many parts of the world, is much more internationally driven. So even though there has been some opening; Japan has opened up; somewhat Korea; China, yet it's been more domestic travel than international. International airlift, Asia is still much more reduced than the rest of the world.

就亞太地區而言，我希望它成為我們業務中更大的一部分。這不是我們業務的重要組成部分。我們在那裡有一個非常好的 B2B 業務，基本上（聽不清）封閉的亞太市場，我們的 B2B - B2C 業務也是如此。我們的 B2C 業務與世界上許多地方一樣，更加國際化。因此，即使有一些開放；日本開放了；有點韓國；中國，但國內旅行多於國際旅行。國際空運，亞洲仍然比世界其他地區減少得多。

So I think we'll see that come back. I think you'll probably see some shift if Europe slows down, you'll see airlift move to APAC, if APAC is opening up and you'll see opportunities. Obviously, currency will play a role in where people are willing to go and how far their money goes in different regions. Again, we think that's probably net good for us being relatively heavy in North America where the dollar is strong. But again, we expect that to open up sequentially. Hopefully, China will open at some point this coming year, and we have a very good relationship with Ctrip and power a lot of their outbound international travel. So I think there's opportunity for us, but that is the next shoe to drop. We agree with that. That will be the next rising tide as (inaudible) and the rest of the world, we'll see.

所以我想我們會看到它回來。我認為如果歐洲放緩，你可能會看到一些轉變，你會看到空運轉移到亞太地區，如果亞太地區開放，你會看到機會。顯然，貨幣將在人們願意去哪里以及他們的錢在不同地區能走多遠方面發揮作用。同樣，我們認為這可能對我們在美元堅挺的北美相對沉重是有利的。但同樣，我們希望按順序開放。希望中國能在明年的某個時候開放，我們與攜程的關係非常好，並為他們的很多出境國際旅行提供了動力。所以我認為我們有機會，但那是下一隻要掉的鞋子。我們同意這一點。這將是（聽不清）和世界其他地區的下一個漲潮，我們將拭目以待。

And your next question goes to Brian Fitzgerald of Wells Fargo.

你的下一個問題是富國銀行的布萊恩菲茨杰拉德。

Vrbo recently came with its known tech stack and there are different value propositions from the front end versus HCOM and Expedia. But is there more leverage to be gained there? Can we get an update on the progress of back and front of unification work? And then it just seems, Peter, you mentioned trip boards and smart shopping and airfare tracker (inaudible). The rate of iteration or testing or innovation is accelerating. Is that true now that you have a more homogenized base of technology and tools and should we expect more of the same?

Vrbo 最近推出了其著名的技術堆棧，前端與 HCOM 和 Expedia 有不同的價值主張。但是那裡有更多的槓桿作用嗎？我們能否了解一下統一前後工作的進展情況？然後看起來，彼得，你提到了旅行板和智能購物和機票跟踪器（聽不清）。迭代或測試或創新的速度正在加快。現在您擁有更加同質化的技術和工具基礎，這是真的嗎？我們是否應該期待更多相同的東西？

Yes. I mean we're pushing in heavily into that. I would segment the last part to say there's testing and optimization work, which is ramping up significantly right now and was what was sort of on hiatus in the middle of the year as we were moving Hotels.com. That's now allowed us to be in a new position to roll out innovation winners, et cetera, across a much wider base and to test across a much wider base of our consumers.

是的。我的意思是我們正在大力推動這一點。我會細分最後一部分說有測試和優化工作，現在正在顯著增加，並且在我們移動 Hotels.com 時在年中處於中斷狀態。現在，這使我們能夠在更廣泛的基礎上推出創新贏家等，並在更廣泛的消費者基礎上進行測試。

Your first question, Vrbo, that's still on its own stack. It is next up. It is literally going to start testing traffic on the single platform by the end of this year, before the end of this year. But it will be a gentle -- we mean to disrupt it as little as possible. But that, again, will give us potential future innovation. Now the Vrbo stack and the Vrbo shopping experience is a quite different thing than conventional lodging and shopping, I'm sure you're familiar.

你的第一個問題，Vrbo，它仍然在它自己的堆棧中。它是下一個。它實際上將在今年年底之前開始在單一平台上測試流量。但它會很溫和——我們的意思是盡可能少地干擾它。但是，這又會給我們帶來潛在的未來創新。現在，Vrbo 堆棧和 Vrbo 購物體驗與傳統的住宿和購物完全不同，相信您很熟悉。

So the ability to test the same types of winners across conventional lodging and Vrbo may not be quite as dramatic. But there are a lot of cross-cutting benefits like trip planning potentially or checkout or other things that will work for multiple products. So it's all on a journey there. Vrbo's the next to go. But I'd say the big benefit on the conventional lodging side, we've gotten across and now we are starting to iterate significantly on.

因此，在傳統住宿和 Vrbo 中測試相同類型的獲勝者的能力可能不會那麼引人注目。但是有很多跨領域的好處，比如潛在的旅行計劃或結賬或其他適用於多種產品的東西。所以這一切都在旅途中。 Vrbo是下一個去的。但我想說的是傳統住宿方面的巨大好處，我們已經克服了，現在我們開始顯著迭代。

And then the feature part, whether it's trip planning or flight tracking or other things, that's really another category that's like innovating into new ways of shopping, new ways of sharing and collaborating, and we think that's the future of the business. We think there hasn't been much innovation in the space. We want to lead in this space. We -- the consumer adoption has been very good. But of course, we've got to get it everywhere on everything. And we've got to keep going. So we really want to differentiate on the product on benefits of being a member, including loyalty, but also pricing and packaging and other capabilities. All of that, we think, is what makes the product sticky. We're doing a much better job of it now, but we will do a much, much better job of going into next year.

然後是功能部分，無論是旅行計劃還是航班跟踪或其他東西，這實際上是另一個類別，就像創新新的購物方式、新的共享和協作方式一樣，我們認為這就是業務的未來。我們認為該領域沒有太多創新。我們希望在這個領域處於領先地位。我們——消費者的接受度非常好。但是，當然，我們必須在所有東西上到處都使用它。我們必須繼續前進。所以我們真的想在產品上區分成為會員的好處，包括忠誠度，還有定價和包裝和其他功能。我們認為，所有這些都是使產品具有粘性的原因。我們現在做得更好，但明年我們會做得更好。

And the next question goes to Anthony (inaudible).

下一個問題是安東尼（聽不清）。

A couple of questions for you. First, Peter, you look at -- traditionally, we look at marketing to bookings, and I think you're kind of arguing we should look at gross profit, which is up since 2019. So can you just kind of help people understand how you're looking at your marketing spend maybe differently than the old management team?

幾個問題問你。首先，彼得，你看 - 傳統上，我們關注預訂的營銷，我認為你有點爭辯說我們應該看看自 2019 年以來一直在增長的毛利潤。所以你能幫助人們了解如何您對營銷支出的看法可能與舊管理團隊不同？

And then Julie, welcome aboard. I think the stock has been under pressure. There's been a little disappointment that some of the margin improvement that was kind of speculated on after the cost cuts in 2000 hasn't been as evident. Is there an opportunity to kind of -- and maybe not on this call, of course, but in the future, give some guideposts for long-term margins for the company to help the Street?

然後是朱莉，歡迎加入。我認為該股一直處於壓力之下。在 2000 年成本削減之後，人們推測的一些利潤率改善並沒有那麼明顯，這有點令人失望。有沒有機會——當然，也許不是在這次電話會議上，但在未來，為公司的長期利潤提供一些指導，以幫助華爾街？

Thanks, Anthony. I'll take the marketing point first. I can't speak for prior management. I think it is slightly different, though. The point I mentioned about thinking of the whole pool of spend on customers, be it loyalty, direct marketing brand, et cetera. That's how we're looking at it now, which was not entirely held and looked at before. These are all from our perspective, ways to drive transactions, drive value and we're looking at that as a complete pool of spend. So that's different.

謝謝，安東尼。我先講營銷點。我不能代表先前的管理。不過，我認為它略有不同。我提到的一點是考慮客戶的整個支出池，無論是忠誠度、直銷品牌等等。這就是我們現在看它的方式，以前沒有完全持有和看。從我們的角度來看，這些都是推動交易、推動價值的方式，我們將其視為一個完整的支出池。所以這是不同的。

And then yes, we think you have to look at it relative to GP because volume by room nights is not relevant, right? It has to be a question of how much GP you're deriving on a given transaction because ultimately, GP is what turns into real margin into a real contribution. So we are -- if you use that room was $100 and now $200 or our take was $100 on transaction and now it's $200, you're not going to bid the same thing you would bid or invest the same thing you would invest to get a $100 transaction, you'd be willing to invest more to get a $200 transaction.

然後是的，我們認為您必須相對於 GP 來看待它，因為按房晚計算的數量無關緊要，對吧？它必須是您在給定交易中獲得多少 GP 的問題，因為最終，GP 是真正的利潤轉化為實際貢獻的東西。所以我們是——如果你使用那個房間是 100 美元，現在是 200 美元，或者我們的交易費用是 100 美元，現在是 200 美元，你不會出價相同的東西，或者投資相同的東西，你會投資得到100 美元的交易，您願意投入更多資金來獲得 200 美元的交易。

So you have to look at it at as GP. We recognize it's challenging for the outside world to know what our book GP is but we're trying to express to everybody that, that is the -- from our perspective, the right way to look at it. You are investing a portion of your profits back into keeping the machine growing. And that is how we look at it. So I'd say the big differences are we're looking at it at the entire pool, not discrete, like loyalty can be X, but marketing should be Y or it's all about direct marketing as a percentage of revenue, right? That's not the right math from our perspective.

因此，您必須將其視為 GP。我們認識到外界很難知道我們的書 GP 是什麼，但我們正試圖向所有人表達，從我們的角度來看，這是看待它的正確方式。您正在將部分利潤投入到保持機器的增長中。這就是我們的看法。所以我想說最大的區別是我們關注的是整個池，而不是離散的，比如忠誠度可以是 X，但營銷應該是 Y，或者這完全是關於直接營銷佔收入的百分比，對嗎？從我們的角度來看，這不是正確的數學。

But we recognize that it makes it more complex to understand from the outside because booked GP is obviously correlated to booked room nights is correlated to other things. But there's noise in it because most of us have here and other things floating through the gross booking lines, and it gets a little confusing. So -- but that is how we look at it. That is how we think it's the right way to look at it. And as I've said a couple of times, it's all for us about balancing this journey into this long-term investment pool without over-indexing to it and giving up too much short-term business but getting there over time because we believe it's absolutely the right answer to long-term profitable growth with higher margins, et cetera. So that's what we're pushing into, and that's that we totally believe in that model.

但我們認識到，從外部理解它會變得更加複雜，因為預訂的 GP 顯然與預訂的房間夜數相關，並且與其他事物相關。但是裡面有噪音，因為我們大多數人都在這里和其他東西在總預訂線上浮動，這有點令人困惑。所以——但這就是我們看待它的方式。這就是我們認為這是看待它的正確方式。正如我已經說過幾次的那樣，這一切都是為了我們平衡這個進入這個長期投資池的旅程，而不是過度索引它並放棄太多的短期業務，但隨著時間的推移到達那裡，因為我們相信這是絕對是利潤率更高的長期盈利增長的正確答案，等等。所以這就是我們正在推動的，這就是我們完全相信這種模式。

Anthony, nice to meet you. Regarding your margin comment, obviously, that is something we're very focused on. I mean, certainly, in 2021, we took $1 billion of cost out and that certainly was the start of our hampering improvement. And if you look even through the third quarter today, we're at 30% margin, which is over 400 basis points over 2019 levels. So we're still holding those cost savings from where they were with some slight movements here and there.

安東尼，很高興認識你。關於您的邊際評論，顯然，這是我們非常關注的事情。我的意思是，當然，在 2021 年，我們節省了 10 億美元的成本，這當然是我們阻礙改進的開始。如果你看今天第三季度，我們的利潤率為 30%，比 2019 年的水平高出 400 個基點以上。因此，我們仍然保持著從原來的地方節省下來的成本，並在這里和那裡進行一些輕微的變動。

But certainly, even as Peter mentioned earlier, we're all about still maintaining efficiency, maintaining a culture of strong financial discipline. And certainly, that's something that I look forward to bringing to the table as well. It's something that's in my track record. And so there'll be things that we're going to continue to look for and drive that margin even higher. And certainly, all the things that we're doing from a strategic growth initiative perspective is all about driving profitable revenue and not just driving revenue at any cost.

但可以肯定的是，即使正如彼得之前提到的，我們仍然要保持效率，保持強大的財務紀律文化。當然，這也是我期待提出來的。這是我的記錄。因此，我們將繼續尋找一些東西並將利潤率推得更高。當然，從戰略增長計劃的角度來看，我們所做的所有事情都是為了推動盈利收入，而不僅僅是不惜一切代價推動收入。

And so therefore, we do expect to have margin expansion over time. I mean setting a target is always difficult because then you set a target we want to be even higher. So I think at this moment, we're just focused on growing that margin as fast as we can as a result of all of our strategic initiatives.

因此，我們確實預計利潤率會隨著時間的推移而擴大。我的意思是設定一個目標總是很困難，因為你設定了一個我們想要更高的目標。因此，我認為，由於我們所有的戰略舉措，我們現在只專注於盡可能快地增加利潤。

And the next question goes to Tom Champion of Piper Sandler.

下一個問題是派珀桑德勒的湯姆冠軍。

Peter, I don't know if you could add any comments on the B2B business and the opportunity there. Revenue in the quarter was obviously very strong. But just any highlights from your perspective? And then Julie, likewise, it's great to speak with you this afternoon. I'm curious if you could just talk a little bit about what attracted you to the role and the opportunity? You're obviously familiar with the company, but just curious if you could elaborate on that and maybe your areas of focus into '23?

彼得，我不知道您是否可以對 B2B 業務和那裡的機會發表任何評論。本季度的收入顯然非常強勁。但從你的角度來看，有什麼亮點嗎？然後朱莉，同樣，很高興今天下午與你交談。我很好奇你能不能簡單談談是什麼吸引了你到這個角色和機會？你顯然對這家公司很熟悉，但只是好奇你是否可以詳細說明這一點，也許你的重點領域是 23 年？

Yes. Thanks, Tom. I'll go first. I think B2B has been doing extremely well for us. We view it as a tactical way to play in some parts of the world. Where we don't play a B2C business, we view it as an opportunity to grow, grow our number of partners, grow our wallet share, as I referenced, and of course, grow our product offerings. And we've had incremental improvement over the years as we've added things like our wholesale business optimized distribution, which is expanding quite well.

是的。謝謝，湯姆。我先走。我認為 B2B 對我們來說做得非常好。我們將其視為在世界某些地區進行比賽的一種戰術方式。在我們不從事 B2C 業務的地方，我們將其視為增長的機會，增加我們的合作夥伴數量，增加我們的錢包份額，正如我所提到的，當然，增加我們的產品供應。多年來，隨著我們添加了諸如我們的批發業務優化分銷之類的東西，我們已經取得了漸進式的改進，而且擴展得很好。

I mentioned we grew wallet share. We have many new partners in the pipeline, and we've acquired new partners. We don't announce every one, but it's a continuing expanding base. So we see a lot of really attractive opportunity. We think there are lots of pockets of demand out there that we have not yet reached and that are challenging to reach without going to those partners directly and those partners view us as an extremely good and safe partner in the travel space to go to because we can do everything. We do it well, and they get all the benefits of all our technological advances as we make them.

我提到我們增加了錢包份額。我們有許多新的合作夥伴正在籌備中，我們已經獲得了新的合作夥伴。我們不會宣布每一個，但它是一個不斷擴大的基礎。所以我們看到了很多非常有吸引力的機會。我們認為有很多我們尚未達到的需求領域，如果不直接與這些合作夥伴聯繫就很難達到這些需求，而這些合作夥伴認為我們是旅行領域非常好的和安全的合作夥伴，因為我們可以做任何事情。我們做得很好，他們從我們製造的所有技術進步中獲得了所有好處。

So we think there's a lot of benefits in that core business. And then as I've said, we've been pushing into this idea of externalizing more of our capabilities as micro services. That's what our fraud test is about. We will test many other things this coming year, and we're piloting them with different partners. But it's a real opportunity for us to take our technological advances and bring them to the industry and help create greater efficiency in our partners running their businesses and then ultimately expand the universe of partners who can sell travel.

所以我們認為核心業務有很多好處。然後正如我所說，我們一直在推動將我們的更多功能外部化為微服務的想法。這就是我們的欺詐測試的內容。今年我們將測試許多其他的東西，並且我們正在與不同的合作夥伴進行試點。但這對我們來說是一個真正的機會，可以利用我們的技術進步並將其帶入行業，幫助我們的合作夥伴提高經營業務的效率，然後最終擴大可以銷售旅行的合作夥伴的範圍。

So that goes to social commerce and other things that have been talked about in other industries, but we're really in a pretty unique position to do that at scale as we roll out these technical capabilities. So we're extremely bullish there. We've expanded and improved our partnerships with many of our biggest supply partners through these kind of technological relationships, and we're feeling quite good about it.

所以這適用於社交商務和其他行業已經討論過的其他事情，但隨著我們推出這些技術能力，我們確實處於一個非常獨特的位置，可以大規模地做到這一點。所以我們非常看好那裡。通過這種技術關係，我們擴大並改善了與許多最大供應合作夥伴的合作夥伴關係，我們對此感覺非常好。

Some of this stuff is very early. Those new products are quite early days, and they've got to get perfected and rolled out and then scaled. But that's the pipeline of the future. And in the meantime, our core business and some of the more recent additions like our wholesale business, et cetera, are expanding quite nicely, and we continue to win business across the globe. So feeling really great about that business.

有些東西很早。這些新產品還處於早期階段，它們必須得到完善和推廣，然後再進行擴展。但這就是未來的管道。與此同時，我們的核心業務和最近新增的一些業務，如我們的批發業務等，正在很好地擴張，我們繼續在全球贏得業務。所以對這項業務感覺非常好。

Tom, it's Julie. Nice to meet you as well. As far as what attracted me to come here, quite honestly, I have the benefit of being on the Board since 2019. And so because of that, I was able to certainly be involved with the management team that's here and also to be sort of under the covers, if you will, with the strategic opportunities that they were executing against and certainly, of course, like some of the financials and all of the capital allocation policy and things like that.

湯姆，是朱莉。也很高興認識你。至於是什麼吸引我來到這裡，老實說，我有幸自 2019 年以來成為董事會成員。因此，我當然能夠參與到這裡的管理團隊中，並且有點像在幕後，如果你願意的話，還有他們正在執行的戰略機會，當然，當然，比如一些財務和所有資本分配政策等等。

But really, the strategic initiatives that I was able to see that they were transforming the business. And some of the things they were doing are just game changers. And some of this, I had actually at my previous company. And once we (inaudible) that really enabled the business to take off in a big way. So I knew they were at the pivotal point as the company to launch these changes. And so I just thought there's tremendous opportunity for growth and profitability of this company, and I wanted to be a part of it.

但實際上，我能夠看到的戰略舉措正在改變業務。他們正在做的一些事情只是改變遊戲規則。其中一些，我實際上在我以前的公司有過。一旦我們（聽不清），這確實使業務能夠大幅起飛。所以我知道他們正處於公司啟動這些變化的關鍵點。所以我只是認為這家公司有巨大的增長和盈利機會，我想成為其中的一員。

As far as changes that could be coming down the way, I mean, first and foremost, I'm just trying to learn as fast as I can, the details of the company, certainly, as I said, I knew the bigger picture. And so there's not -- no plans for any major changes shorter term. But certainly, if you look back at my track record, which I mentioned earlier, certainly all about strong financial discipline, driving efficiencies, making sure we're generating investments with high returns and that we have a capital allocation policy that really favors our shareholders. And so that's something that is certainly going to be behind as we move forward and as this business continues to outperform.

至於可能會發生的變化，我的意思是，首先，我只是想盡可能快地了解公司的細節，當然，正如我所說，我知道大局。所以沒有 - 短期內沒有任何重大變化的計劃。但可以肯定的是，如果你回顧我之前提到的我的業績記錄，肯定是關於嚴格的財務紀律、提高效率、確保我們正在產生高回報的投資以及我們擁有真正有利於股東的資本分配政策.因此，隨著我們前進以及該業務繼續表現出色，這肯定會落後。

And the next question goes to John Colantuoni of Jefferies.

下一個問題是 Jefferies 的 John Colantuoni。

So you've been pretty clear about prioritizing customer LTV in your marketing approach. But I'm curious how you're thinking about the opportunity cost of losing out potential customers to competitors as they remain aggressive in driving share gains in your core market? And at some point, does their aggressiveness necessitate a shift in marketing strategy towards some of those lower ROI channels in case it's reducing your opportunity to attract higher-value travelers and also to avoid the unintended impact of your pullback in those channels, helping competitors realize higher ROI because you inadvertently reduced the competitiveness in the keyword bidding environment? And I have a follow-up.

因此，您非常清楚在營銷方法中優先考慮客戶 LTV。但我很好奇你是如何考慮將潛在客戶輸給競爭對手的機會成本，因為他們仍然積極推動核心市場的份額增長？在某些時候，他們的進取心是否需要將營銷策略轉向一些投資回報率較低的渠道，以防它減少您吸引高價值旅行者的機會，並避免您在這些渠道中撤退的意外影響，幫助競爭對手意識到更高的投資回報率，因為您無意中降低了關鍵字競價環境中的競爭力？我有一個後續行動。

Okay. Thanks, John. A lot to talk about there. But I would say, at a high level, it's what I've said a couple of times now, which is it's all -- you're right, it's all about balancing that, right? You're making a transition of trying to build a base of customers that actually left your product, have found benefit in your product and will drive longer-term returns. There is a lot of traffic out there every day.

好的。謝謝，約翰。那裡有很多話要說。但我會說，在高層次上，這就是我現在已經說過幾次的內容，僅此而已-您是對的，這完全是為了平衡，對嗎？你正在嘗試建立一個真正離開你的產品、從你的產品中發現好處並將推動長期回報的客戶群。那裡每天都有很多交通。

I think the industry has proven for decades really that there's a mass of people that are up for grabs every day. The challenge hasn't been buying them. That's just a question of how big a check you're willing to write. The challenge has been keeping them. And I think that's been true for everybody in the industry. We're really invested, as you can probably tell in making the product better, making the benefits better, making people stick and making sure they get the benefit of being with us. But of course, there's a balance to be struck.

我認為這個行業幾十年來已經證明，每天都有大量的人在等著搶。挑戰並不在於購買它們。這只是你願意開多大的支票的問題。挑戰一直是留住他們。我認為這個行業的每個人都是如此。我們真的投入了，正如您可能會說的那樣，讓產品更好，讓福利更好，讓人們堅持下去，並確保他們從與我們在一起的好處中受益。但是，當然，要達成平衡。

And we're not suggesting we found a perfect balance, but we're moving across a journey where we think we can get to a place where the core base of long-term valuable customers becomes a new threshold level that you're building on top of. And we also believe as the product improves and as we're better at getting people into membership and into experiencing the benefits that those otherwise cheap, less valuable pieces of business that we've sort of (inaudible) this period become more valuable to us over time. In other words, we'll be able to buy let's say, meta traffic or other kinds of traffic more efficiently because we're better at keeping them and turning them into long-term customers.

我們並不是說我們找到了完美的平衡，但我們正在經歷一段旅程，我們認為我們可以到達一個地方，長期有價值的客戶的核心基礎成為你正在建立的新門檻水平某個東西的上放。而且我們還相信，隨著產品的改進以及我們更好地讓人們成為會員並體驗到我們在這段時期（聽不清）的那些原本便宜、價值較低的業務對我們來說變得更有價值的好處隨著時間的推移。換句話說，我們將能夠更有效地購買元流量或其他類型的流量，因為我們更擅長保留它們並將它們轉化為長期客戶。

So those things are in flux all of the time, and we are looking to optimize it all at the time. we're not looking to throw business to the wild and let somebody else get it, but we're also not willing to just be upside down at any price to buy traffic and prey. So it's something we're balancing literally every day, and we're continuing to balance. And as we plan for next year, we'll continue to balance. But we think we're directionally right. We won't be perfect, but we're directionally right.

所以這些東西一直在變化，我們一直在尋求優化它。我們不希望將業務拋諸腦後，讓其他人得到它，但我們也不願意不惜一切代價購買流量和獵物。所以這是我們每天都在平衡的事情，我們正在繼續平衡。當我們計劃明年時，我們將繼續保持平衡。但我們認為我們的方向是正確的。我們不會完美，但我們的方向是正確的。

And as we continue to build up this huge base of members and reduce churn and include more of them through the broader loyalty plan, we think that's going to be incredibly valuable to us. So we feel good about that trade. But your question is fair, and we look at it every day. And so that's -- we will keep looking at it every day.

隨著我們繼續建立龐大的會員基礎並減少流失並通過更廣泛的忠誠度計劃納入更多會員，我們認為這對我們來說將是非常有價值的。所以我們對這筆交易感覺良好。但你的問題是公平的，我們每天都在看。所以這就是 - 我們每天都會繼續關注它。

I appreciate that. And you mentioned some more opportunities to drive efficiency over time. Can you just outline some of the more impactful buckets you have for incremental efficiency gains on the fixed cost side?

我很感激。您還提到了隨著時間的推移提高效率的更多機會。您能否概述一下您在固定成本方面提高效率的一些更有影響力的方法？

I think it's twofold, right? It's both driving faster growth, which is getting some of the benefit of the members, et cetera, that we've been stacking up (inaudible) these many months and into next year and having that expansion come to more direct business that we don't have to pay to get regained. So that's where we pay through loyalty, but that's a much smaller cost to us. So that's a big area of separation, where I think the margin dollars will expand because we won't be paying incrementally all the time for the same business.

我認為這是雙重的，對吧？它既推動了更快的增長，也為會員帶來了一些好處，等等，我們在這幾個月和明年一直在積累（聽不清），並且讓這種擴張涉及到我們沒有的更直接的業務'不必付費才能恢復。所以這就是我們通過忠誠度支付的地方，但這對我們來說成本要小得多。所以這是一個很大的分離領域，我認為保證金會增加，因為我們不會一直為同一業務增加支付費用。

And then I think on the fixed cost side, there's all kinds of efforts going on. We haven't fully optimized the cloud. But we've moved a lot of technology into the cloud, but we have a lot of work to do. We're still synthesizing our data pools to be more efficient around data, all of those things have knock-on effects and costs in compute time and cloud. So there's a bunch of work going on there. There's a bunch of opportunity as we move to this one platform to optimize better, and every optimization is essentially a chance of efficiency, right?

然後我認為在固定成本方面，正在進行各種努力。我們還沒有完全優化雲。但是我們已經將很多技術轉移到了雲中，但我們還有很多工作要做。我們仍在綜合我們的數據池以更高效地處理數據，所有這些都會在計算時間和雲計算方面產生連鎖反應和成本。所以那裡有很多工作要做。當我們轉移到這個平台以更好地優化時，有很多機會，每一次優化本質上都是提高效率的機會，對吧？

It's more conversion, more dollars per transaction, but it's not more people, it's not more anything. It's just better technology, more use of machine learning, et cetera. So there's a bunch of big pockets. There's no like, oh, by the way, there's -- I can tell you where $1 billion is (inaudible), but we spent a ton of money on cloud. We spent a ton of money on adding capabilities. And over time, as you do it on one platform, it all becomes more efficient. So I think it's a lot of little things, but it adds up with our base of people and fixed cost, it adds up significantly over time. We've been able to maintain our headcount at a level we feel good about, and we think we can grow massively on top of that without having to add lots of pockets to be able to do it.

這是更多的轉換，每筆交易更多的美元，但不是更多的人，也不是更多的東西。這只是更好的技術，更多地使用機器學習等等。所以有一堆大口袋。沒有，哦，順便說一下，有 - 我可以告訴你 10 億美元在哪裡（聽不清），但我們在雲上花了很多錢。我們花了很多錢來增加功能。隨著時間的推移，當您在一個平台上執行此操作時，一切都會變得更加高效。所以我認為這是很多小事，但它與我們的人員基礎和固定成本相加，隨著時間的推移它會顯著增加。我們已經能夠將員工人數保持在我們感覺良好的水平，並且我們認為我們可以在此基礎上大幅增長，而無需增加大量資金來做到這一點。

And the final question goes to Jed Kelly of Oppenheimer.

最後一個問題是奧本海默的傑德凱利。

Great. Just 2, if I may. Peter, I think you mentioned earlier this year, you had pulled back marketing in some of the European countries because you weren't happy with the ROI. Can you talk about where the product is for you to lean back into those countries? And then just on Vrbo, just on the supply, can you talk about any benefit you're seeing from higher interest rates and potentially getting more Vrbo supply?

偉大的。可以的話，就2個。彼得，我想你今年早些時候提到過，你已經撤回了在一些歐洲國家的營銷，因為你對投資回報率不滿意。你能談談產品在哪裡可以讓你重新回到這些國家嗎？然後就 Vrbo，就供應而言，你能談談你從更高的利率和可能獲得更多 Vrbo 供應中看到的任何好處嗎？

Yes. I wish we had (inaudible) to tell you that interest rates are driving homeowners to us. What I can tell you is Vrbo all through COVID and still produces more for homeowner and more for house than any of our competitors. So I think we're in a great place for homeowners who want to monetize their assets (inaudible), assuming it's in places that are interesting to us and where we can drive business. So I think we set up quite nicely if you believe in that construct that people need to monetize their homes, their assets, their second homes, et cetera.

是的。我希望我們（聽不清）告訴您利率正在驅使房主來到我們這裡。我可以告訴你的是，在整個 COVID 期間，Vrbo 仍然比我們的任何競爭對手為房主和房屋生產更多。因此，我認為對於想要將其資產貨幣化（聽不清）的房主來說，我們處於一個好地方，假設它位於我們感興趣的地方並且我們可以推動業務發展。所以我認為，如果你相信人們需要將他們的房屋、資產、第二套房子等貨幣化，那麼我們的設置就非常好。

Again, we do -- we're not doing a lot of primary home where people move out of their house and rent it for 2 days or whatever. That's not really our business model. But there is lots of opportunity. And presumably, people are maybe a little less (inaudible) with the cost of capital and may want to monetize that. So I think directionally, it's positive, but it's not that quick switch thing, that we see a massive uplift just because rates increase. But we're pushing into it, and we expect supply to grow meaningfully next year.

再說一次，我們這樣做了——我們沒有做很多主要的家庭，人們搬出他們的房子並租用 2 天或其他什麼。這不是我們真正的商業模式。但是有很多機會。據推測，人們對資本成本的影響可能會少一些（聽不清），並且可能希望將其貨幣化。所以我從方向上認為，這是積極的，但並不是那麼迅速的轉變，我們看到一個巨大的提升僅僅是因為利率上升。但我們正在努力，我們預計明年供應量將顯著增長。

As far as the marketing question, it goes back really beyond this past year. I mean we saw a lot of pockets where we were overinvested, weren't getting the return, weren't getting the long-term return that even made sense of what we were investing to buy traffic in some parts of Europe and other places and we (inaudible) back. We found this, as I mentioned, as we keep rebalancing, sometimes we're finding opportunity to push back in some of those places. So it's not -- it's not like there's a line in the sand, and we got to it and we're staying there, like we pulled back and then we saw opportunity and in some cases, we pushed in a little bit more. But I think broadly, at the heart of your question, which is right, we want to be lined up with all the right product capabilities to go after a market fully. And right now, we're sort of perfecting our product in North America in terms of how everything works, how loyalty rolls out, how people get signed up, how we engage them with CRM, and everything. And that's a model we then want to repeat.

至於營銷問題，它實際上可以追溯到過去一年。我的意思是我們看到了很多我們過度投資的口袋，沒有獲得回報，沒有獲得長期回報，甚至無法理解我們為購買歐洲某些地區和其他地方的流量而進行的投資，我們（聽不清）回來了。正如我所提到的，我們發現了這一點，隨著我們不斷重新平衡，有時我們會在其中一些地方尋找機會進行反擊。所以它不是 - 它不是像沙子裡有一條線，我們到達了它並且我們留在那裡，就像我們退縮然後我們看到了機會，在某些情況下，我們進一步推進了一點。但我認為，從廣義上講，你的問題的核心是正確的，我們希望擁有所有合適的產品能力，以充分追求市場。現在，我們正在完善我們在北美的產品，包括一切如何運作、忠誠度如何推出、人們如何註冊、我們如何讓他們與 CRM 互動，等等。這就是我們想要重複的模型。

Now many big markets across the globe, we have many of those things. But we have a very focused idea of we're going to get the product set up end-to-end, then we're going to go hard after markets and then we believe we can win with the strategy that we think is winning right now here. So we'll keep pushing on it. And we're not there yet. But I think as we get into next year, we will have a much clearer idea of where you'll see us, take some more aggressive action in certain markets where we think there's opportunity.

現在全球有很多大市場，我們有很多這樣的東西。但是我們有一個非常專注的想法，即我們將端到端設置產品，然後我們將在市場之後努力工作，然後我們相信我們可以通過我們認為正確的策略獲勝現在在這裡。所以我們會繼續努力。我們還沒有。但我認為，隨著我們進入明年，我們將對你會在哪裡看到我們有一個更清晰的想法，在我們認為有機會的某些市場採取一些更積極的行動。

Of course, there's some macroeconomic noise to watch out for there because there may be markets we want to get aggressive in that may have economic challenges. So we'll have to balance all of those things. But that is our approach to it. We want the end-to-end product to be great. We want the loyalty and all the pieces to be there. And when we have like our full suite of weapons, we're going to go at these markets one by one and try to win.

當然，那裡有一些宏觀經濟噪音需要提防，因為我們可能想要積極進取的市場可能會面臨經濟挑戰。所以我們必須平衡所有這些事情。但這是我們的方法。我們希望端到端產品很棒。我們希望忠誠度和所有的碎片都在那裡。當我們擁有全套武器時，我們將一一進入這些市場並嘗試取勝。

Thank you.

謝謝你。

Thank you, everybody. I think that's it so - go ahead, operator. sorry.

謝謝大家。我想就是這樣 - 來吧，接線員。對不起。

That concludes today's call. You may now disconnect your lines, and have a nice day.

今天的電話會議到此結束。您現在可以斷開線路，祝您有美好的一天。

Thank you, everyone. Take care.

謝謝大家。小心。