(EXPE) 2023 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Expedia Group Q3 2023 Financial Results Teleconference. My name is Lauren, and I'll be your operator for today's call. (Operator Instructions) For opening remarks, I will turn the call over to SVP, Corporate Development Strategy and Investor Relations, Harshit Vaish. Please go ahead.

大家好，歡迎參加 Expedia Group 2023 年第三季財務業績電話會議。我叫勞倫，我將擔任今天電話的接線生。 （操作員說明）對於開場白，我將把電話轉給公司發展策略和投資者關係高級副總裁 Harshit Vaish。請繼續。

Good afternoon, and welcome to Expedia Group's Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. I'm pleased to be joined on today's call by our CEO, Peter Kern; and our CFO, Julie Whalen.

下午好，歡迎參加 Expedia Group 2023 年第三季財報電話會議。我很高興我們的執行長 Peter Kern 參加今天的電話會議；以及我們的財務長 Julie Whalen。

As a reminder, our commentary today will include references to certain non-GAAP measures. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures are included in our earnings release. And unless otherwise stated, any reference expenses exclude stock-based compensation.

提醒一下，我們今天的評論將提及某些非公認會計原則措施。這些非公認會計準則衡量標準與最具可比性的公認會計準則衡量標準的對帳已包含在我們的收益發布中。除非另有說明，任何參考費用均不包括股票薪酬。

We will also be making forward-looking statements during the call, which are predictions, projections or other statements about our future events. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions, which are subject to risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. Actual results could materially differ due to factors discussed during this call and in our most recent Forms 10-K, 10-Q and other filings with the SEC. Except as required by law, we do not undertake any responsibility to update these forward-looking statements.

我們還將在電話會議期間做出前瞻性聲明，即有關我們未來事件的預測、預測或其他聲明。這些陳述是基於目前的預期和假設，受到難以預測的風險和不確定性的影響。由於本次電話會議以及我們最近向 SEC 提交的 10-K、10-Q 表格和其他文件中討論的因素，實際結果可能會存在重大差異。除法律要求外，我們不承擔更新這些前瞻性陳述的任何責任。

Our earnings release, SEC filings and a replay of today's call can be found on our Investor Relations website at ir.expediagroup.com. And with that, let me turn the call over to Peter.

您可以在我們的投資者關係網站 ir.expediagroup.com 上找到我們的收益發布、SEC 文件以及今天電話會議的重播。接下來，讓我把電話轉給彼得。

Thank you, Harshit, and good afternoon, and thank you all for joining us today. Our third quarter results came in ahead of our expectations with record revenue and EBITDA. This was particularly gratifying, considering the fires in Maui, which had a disproportionate impact on our Vrbo business and put pressure on the top line overall. Travel demand otherwise remained solid with broad trends consistent over the last few months. North America and Europe demand remained stable with more pronounced growth in APAC and Latin America. Prices also remained stable by and large. Hotel and Vrbo ADRs are holding up in each region, but mix effects are leading to a slight year-over-year decline in overall lodging ADRs. Conversely, we have seen some modest price pressure in air and car.

謝謝哈希特，下午好，謝謝大家今天加入我們。我們第三季的業績超出了我們的預期，營收和 EBITDA 創歷史新高。考慮到毛伊島的火災對我們的 Vrbo 業務產生了不成比例的影響，並給整體營收帶來了壓力，這一點尤其令人欣慰。除此之外，旅行需求依然強勁，與過去幾個月的整體趨勢一致。北美和歐洲的需求保持穩定，亞太地區和拉丁美洲的成長更為明顯。物價也整體保持穩定。每個地區的飯店和 Vrbo ADR 都保持穩定，但混合效應導致整體住宿 ADR 年比略有下降。相反，我們看到空氣和汽車的價格壓力不大。

We are also keeping a close eye on the escalating violence in the Middle East, which appeared to have some impact on global travel in early October.

我們也密切關注中東不斷升級的暴力事件，這似乎對十月初的全球旅行產生了一些影響。

More relevant to our specific performance, I'm happy to share that we've just completed the final leg of our Vrbo migration onto our single front-end stack with the conclusion of our global launch of the new Vrbo app this past Monday in the U.S.

與我們的具體性能更相關的是，我很高興與大家分享，我們剛剛完成了 Vrbo 遷移到單一前端堆疊的最後一步，並於上週一在全球推出了新的 Vrbo 應用程式。我們。

This marks the last of our major migrations associated with our multiyear transformation. It has been a long, complex journey, but well worth the effort as we are now in a position to accelerate into the future without the drag of transformation work that forced us to go backwards in order to go forwards. We are now in a position to dramatically increase our test-and-learn capacity and feature release velocity while also providing a scalable and efficient base to operate upon.

這標誌著我們與多年轉型相關的最後一次重大遷移。這是一段漫長而複雜的旅程，但非常值得付出努力，因為我們現在能夠加速走向未來，而不會受到迫使我們為了前進而倒退的轉型工作的拖累。我們現在能夠大幅提高我們的測試和學習能力和功能發布速度，同時也提供可擴展且高效的營運基礎。

We continue to utilize our industry-leading AI and ML capabilities to radically improve all aspects of our traveler experience. And with the launch of One Key and our increasing ability to understand the long-term value of our travelers, we can now begin to drive faster, more profitable growth.

我們繼續利用業界領先的人工智慧和機器學習功能，從根本上改善我們的旅行者體驗的各個方面。隨著「一鍵」的推出以及我們了解旅客長期價值的能力不斷增強，我們現在可以開始推動更快、利潤更高的成長。

Moving on to the key pillars of our performance, starting with our category-leading B2B business, which remains on track for a strong year with Q3 revenue growing 26% versus last year. We're winning new deals, increasing wallet share with existing partners, and launching new products and features to support our growth. Demand from China, in particular, continues to pick up with Q3 bookings from China Partners up over 150% year-on-year.

繼續討論我們業績的關鍵支柱，首先是我們類別領先的 B2B 業務，該業務今年仍將保持強勁勢頭，第三季度收入較去年增長 26%。我們正在贏得新的交易，增加與現有合作夥伴的錢包份額，並推出新產品和功能來支持我們的成長。尤其是來自中國的需求持續回升，中國合作夥伴的第三季預訂量較去年同期成長超過 150%。

We anticipate continued strength from B2B going forward, driven by our continuing push into the addressable market along with the advantages that our platform improvements will bring to the B2B business, whether in core technology, the application of AI and machine learning or in service and payments. As we unify stacks, this will also further enhance the capabilities on offer for our B2B partners.

我們預計，在我們不斷進軍潛在市場的推動下，B2B 業務將繼續保持強勁勢頭，同時我們的平台改進將為B2B 業務帶來優勢，無論是在核心技術、人工智慧和機器學習的應用，還是在服務和支付方面。隨著我們統一堆棧，這也將進一步增強為我們的 B2B 合作夥伴提供的功能。

But as pleased as I am with the continued growth of our B2B business, I'm even happier to see our B2C business picking up momentum with year-over-year revenue growth in Q3, accelerating over 400 basis points sequentially. This is what we've all been working so hard for, so it's very gratifying to see these results beginning to improve. Another major milestone for us was the U.S. launch in July of One Key, our new loyalty program. One Key unifies our major brands of Expedia, Hotels.com and Vrbo, allowing our members to earn and burn one simple currency, OneKeyCash across our vast marketplace. As I've mentioned before, getting dividends from a program like this will take some time, given the frequency with which most consumers travel. That said, we are very happy with the early results and traction One Key has with our members.

但除了我對 B2B 業務的持續成長感到高興之外，我更高興地看到我們的 B2C 業務在第三季度營收同比增長勢頭強勁，環比加速超過 400 個基點。這就是我們一直在努力的目標，所以看到這些結果開始改善是非常令人欣慰的。我們的另一個重要里程碑是 7 月在美國推出了我們新的忠誠度計劃 One Key。一鍵統一了我們的主要品牌 Expedia、Hotels.com 和 Vrbo，讓我們的會員可以在我們廣闊的市場中賺取和銷毀一種簡單的貨幣 OneKeyCash。正如我之前提到的，考慮到大多數消費者旅行的頻率，從這樣的計劃中獲得紅利需要一些時間。也就是說，我們對早期成果以及 One Key 對我們會員的吸引力感到非常滿意。

We have already migrated over 82 million members to the program. And with the addition of Vrbo to the mix, we have seen 34% growth in new members over the last year. We have already seen many members using OneKeyCash across brands, including on Vrbo and have been pleased that Hotels.com members have not been unduly impacted and have already been using OneKeyCash to shop for other products on Expedia.

我們已經將超過 8,200 萬會員遷移到該計劃。隨著 Vrbo 的加入，我們去年的新成員數量增加了 34%。我們已經看到許多會員在各個品牌上使用 OneKeyCash，包括在 Vrbo 上，並且很高興 Hotels.com 會員沒有受到過度影響，並且已經在使用 OneKeyCash 在 Expedia 上購買其他產品。

Overall, these promising results have given us solid learnings that will be useful as we launch One Key in other countries next year. And with the Vrbo migration complete, we can now more fully lean into the core differentiation that One Key gives Vrbo in the vacation rental space. One Key, along with our ongoing efforts to more generally attract higher lifetime value customers, is accelerating our mix of loyalty members, app users and app members. And the percentage of bookings coming through our apps continues to grow and was up approximately 300 basis points sequentially in the third quarter, which ultimately contributed to our year-over-year marketing leverage in our B2C business for the third quarter.

總體而言，這些有希望的結果為我們提供了紮實的經驗教訓，當我們明年在其他國家推出「一鍵」時，這些經驗教訓將很有用。隨著 Vrbo 遷移的完成，我們現在可以更充分地利用 One Key 在度假租賃領域賦予 Vrbo 的核心差異化優勢。隨著我們不斷努力吸引更高終身價值的客戶，「一鍵」正在加速我們的忠誠會員、應用程式使用者和應用程式會員的混合。透過我們的應用程式進行的預訂百分比持續增長，第三季度環比增長了約 300 個基點，這最終為我們第三季度 B2C 業務的營銷槓桿做出了貢獻。

We have also been releasing exciting products and features that remove more and more friction from the planning and booking process. In September, we announced our Fall Release, showcasing a series of new features and products, squarely aimed at solving complex traveler problems and enhancing engagement. In case you missed it, I'll give you a few of the highlights. We have simplified group travel planning, providing for the first time one place for friends and family to collaborate on a group trip to see one another selections and add saved options across air lodging, car rentals and activities, significantly using the group planning process and creating a better and more successful trip for everyone. Products like these not only enhance the consumer experience, but allow us to utilize a consumer's own network of friends and family to expand our reach.

我們還發布了令人興奮的產品和功能，消除了規劃和預訂過程中越來越多的摩擦。九月，我們宣布了秋季版本，展示了一系列新功能和產品，旨在解決複雜的旅行者問題並提高參與度。如果你錯過了，我會給你一些亮點。我們簡化了團體旅行計劃，首次為朋友和家人提供了一個地方，可以在團體旅行中協作查看彼此的選擇，並在航空住宿、汽車租賃和活動方面添加已保存的選項，顯著地利用團體計劃流程並創建為每個人帶來更好、更成功的旅行。此類產品不僅增強了消費者體驗，而且使我們能夠利用消費者自己的朋友和家人網絡來擴大我們的影響力。

We've also launched tools to aid research into a given destination, hotel prices, weather, best times to visit, crowd levels and even generative AI-powered tools to determine the best neighborhoods to stay, giving the traveler one place to research where and when to stay in their dream location. We now also leverage generative AI to scrape reviews to answer traveler questions about amenities and property details, so no more sorting through hundreds of reviews to find out how strong the WiFi is, the quality of the pool or whether you're going to like the breakfast.

我們還推出了幫助研究特定目的地、酒店價格、天氣、最佳遊覽時間、人群水平的工具，甚至還推出了人工智能驅動的生成工具來確定最佳的住宿社區，為旅行者提供了一個可以研究地點和地點的工具。何時留在他們夢想的地方。我們現在也利用生成式人工智慧來抓取評論，以回答旅行者有關設施和住宿詳細資訊的問題，因此不再需要對數百條評論進行排序來了解WiFi 的強度、泳池的品質或您是否會喜歡早餐。

We also launched the first project of its kind, EG Labs, which allows interested customers to test our AI-powered beta products, allowing them to play a hand in how we shape the future of travel. I could literally go on and on, but the takeaway is no one in travel is innovating faster than us and with so much important platform work behind us and with our leading capabilities and machine learning and AI, we will out-innovate in the space for many years to come. We have literally worked for years and given up many short-term opportunities to get to this place, and I don't believe anyone is in a better spot technologically, which is not only exciting for our existing business but sets us up to go back on offense in many more markets next year.

我們還推出了第一個此類專案 EG Labs，該專案允許有興趣的客戶測試我們的人工智慧驅動的測試版產品，讓他們能夠在我們如何塑造旅行的未來方面發揮作用。我確實可以繼續說下去，但重點是，旅遊業的創新速度沒有人比我們快，憑藉我們背後的如此多重要的平台工作，以及我們的領先能力、機器學習和人工智慧，我們將在這一領域的創新領先未來很多年。我們確實工作了多年，放棄了許多短期機會才達到這個目標，我不相信有人在技術上處於更好的位置，這不僅對我們現有的業務來說令人興奮，而且使我們能夠回去明年將在更多市場進攻。

In closing, I'm pleased to see our solid execution in Q3 and through 2023 so far. While the geographic mix of business distorts global growth rates, we believe that we have held up or grown hotel gross booking share in virtually all of our key markets and with Vrbo finally completing its migration and the key differentiator of One Key, we expect our vacation rental share to improve going forward. In addition, we are finalizing our plans for '24, where we expect to drive faster and more profitable growth. Our high-level strategy is not going to change, best product, best loyalty program, best marketplace and best service. But instead of spending most of the year doing surgery on our own business, we will be focused on growth, innovation and efficiency. I'm excited for 2024 and beyond and for what we will bring to our travelers, partners and shareholders. And with that, let me hand it over to Julie.

最後，我很高興看到我們在第三季和 2023 年迄今的穩健執行。雖然業務的地理組合扭曲了全球成長率，但我們相信，我們幾乎在所有主要市場中都保持或增加了酒店總預訂份額，並且隨著Vrbo 最終完成遷移以及One Key 的關鍵差異化因素，我們預計我們的假期未來租金份額將會提高。此外，我們正在敲定 24 年的計劃，預計將推動更快、利潤更高的成長。我們的高層策略不會改變，最好的產品、最好的忠誠度計畫、最好的市場和最好的服務。但我們不會把一年中的大部分時間花在自己的業務上，而是專注於成長、創新和效率。我對 2024 年及以後以及我們將為旅行者、合作夥伴和股東帶來的東西感到興奮。接下來，讓我把它交給朱莉。

Thanks, Peter, and hello, everyone. Our third quarter results reflect a meaningful acceleration in the business with revenue reaching a record $3.9 billion with year-over-year growth accelerating approximately 300 basis points sequentially from the second quarter to 9% and with earnings accelerating even further to an almost 31% EBITDA margin, over 110 basis points of expansion versus last year, both of which beat expectations. It is clear our transformation strategy and growth initiatives are playing out, and we anticipate this momentum to continue into the fourth quarter. This is why we have continued buying back our stock at an accelerated level, have announced a new $5 billion share repurchase authorization and are confident to reiterate our full year guidance of double-digit top line growth with margin expansion.

謝謝彼得，大家好。我們第三季的業績反映了業務的顯著加速，營收達到創紀錄的 39 億美元，年成長比第二季連續加快約 300 個基點至 9%，獲利進一步加速至近 31% EBITDA利潤率較去年成長超過110 個基點，皆超出預期。顯然，我們的轉型策略和成長舉措正在發揮作用，我們預計這種勢頭將持續到第四季。這就是為什麼我們繼續加速回購股票，宣布了新的 50 億美元股票回購授權，並有信心重申我們的全年營收兩位數成長和利潤率擴張的指導方針。

Now on to our results for the quarter. Total gross bookings of $25.7 billion were up 7% versus last year, a sequential acceleration in growth from last quarter. Overall, lodging gross bookings grew 8% and were the highest third quarter on record. And this acceleration would have been even higher but for our Vrbo business, given our hotel business grew at a much higher pace at 14%. Our Vrbo business was particularly impacted by the recent Maui fires as well as the brand's short-term migration to our single front-end stack and the continued softness from the demand shift towards more urban areas. Despite this impact, we saw our B2C business accelerate from the second quarter, primarily from continued strength in hotel. And our B2B business saw continued strength and outperformance, consistent with what we have been seeing all year.

現在我們來看看本季的業績。總預訂總額為 257 億美元，比去年增長 7%，較上季連續加速成長。總體而言，住宿總預訂量增加了 8%，是有記錄以來第三季的最高水準。如果不是我們的 Vrbo 業務，這種成長速度會更高，因為我們的飯店業務成長速度要快得多，達到 14%。我們的 Vrbo 業務尤其受到最近毛伊島火災、該品牌向單一前端堆疊的短期遷移以及需求向更多城市地區轉移而持續疲軟的影響。儘管存在這種影響，我們的 B2C 業務從第二季度開始加速成長，這主要得益於酒店業務的持續強勁。我們的 B2B 業務持續強勁且表現出色，與我們全年的表現一致。

Moving to the key financial metrics in the P&L, starting with total revenue. Revenue of $3.9 billion was the highest on record and grew 9% versus last year. Revenue growth was primarily driven by the continued performance of lodging, which grew 12%, driven by our hotel business. We also saw our B2C year-over-year revenue growth accelerate over 400 basis points sequentially versus the second quarter. This growth was partially offset by the softness we have been seeing in our insurance and car businesses, which as we discussed last quarter, have been impacted by some industry-wide changes post-pandemic. Both insurance and car have become less of a drag to growth this quarter, and we expect that trajectory to continue for the rest of the year as we start to comp these declines in the fourth quarter.

轉向損益表中的關鍵財務指標，從總收入開始。營收達到 39 億美元，創歷史新高，比去年成長 9%。營收成長主要得益於住宿業務的持續表現，在飯店業務的推動下，住宿業務成長了 12%。我們也看到，與第二季相比，我們的 B2C 營收年增率加快了 400 個基點以上。這一增長被我們在保險和汽車業務中看到的疲軟所部分抵消，正如我們上季度討論的那樣，這些業務受到了大流行後一些全行業變化的影響。保險和汽車對本季成長的拖累都減少了，隨著我們在第四季度開始彌補這些下降，我們預計今年剩餘時間將繼續保持這種趨勢。

Total revenue margin increased by approximately 20 basis points versus last year, primarily driven by the continued mix to higher lodging revenue, which have higher margins. Cost of sales was $409 million for the quarter, which is lower than last year by $42 million or 10%, with approximately 210 basis points of leverage as a percentage of revenue versus the third quarter of 2022, driven by the ongoing efficiencies we have seen all year. And while we will start to comp some of these benefits during 2024, we expect to continue to drive efficiencies as we eliminate redundant systems and reduce key costs in such areas as cloud, licenses and maintenance.

總收入利潤率比去年增加了約 20 個基點，主要是因為住宿收入持續增加（利潤率較高）。本季的銷售成本為4.09 億美元，比去年減少4,200 萬美元，即10%，在我們看到的持續效率的推動下，槓桿率佔收入的百分比與2022 年第三季相比增加了約210個基點整年。雖然我們將在 2024 年開始補償其中一些優勢，但我們預計將繼續提高效率，因為我們消除了冗餘系統並降低了雲端、授權和維護等領域的關鍵成本。

Direct sales and marketing expense in the third quarter was $1.7 billion, which was up 11% versus the third quarter of 2022, due to an increase in commissions in our B2B business to support strong revenue growth of 26%. Again, commissions paid to our B2B partners are in our direct sales and marketing line and overall are more expensive as a percentage of revenue than our B2C business. But as they are generally paid on (inaudible) basis and to a contractually agreed-upon percentage, the returns are more guaranteed and immediate.

第三季的直接銷售和行銷費用為 17 億美元，較 2022 年第三季成長 11%，原因是我們的 B2B 業務佣金增加，支持了 26% 的強勁收入成長。同樣，支付給我們的 B2B 合作夥伴的佣金屬於我們的直接銷售和行銷業務，總體而言，按收入百分比計算，佣金比我們的 B2C 業務更昂貴。但由於它們通常是按（聽不清楚）基礎並按照合約約定的百分比支付的，因此回報更有保障且更直接。

Our B2C business saw marketing leverage again this quarter as a percentage of gross bookings. These B2C marketing efficiencies resulted from the incremental benefits we are seeing from our continued investments in loyalty and app members, and we expect this positive trend to continue as higher loyalty and app members result in higher direct and repeat traffic that is more efficient. Overhead expenses were $617 million, an increase of $48 million versus last year or 9% and in line with revenue growth. As we have said, this increase is a result of our year-over-year investment in talent across our product and technology teams to support our strategic initiatives. And as we finish our technology work this year and look to deprecate systems and redeploy resources in 2024, we expect to realize cost efficiencies going forward.

我們的 B2C 業務本季再次看到行銷槓桿佔總預訂量的百分比。這些B2C 行銷效率源於我們對忠誠度和應用程式會員的持續投資所帶來的增量收益，我們預計這種積極趨勢將持續下去，因為更高的忠誠度和應用程式會員會帶來更高的直接流量和更有效率的重複流量。管理費用為 6.17 億美元，比去年增加 4,800 萬美元，或 9%，與收入成長一致。正如我們所說，這一成長是我們為支持我們的策略性舉措而對產品和技術團隊的人才進行逐年投資的結果。隨著我們今年完成技術工作，並希望在 2024 年棄用系統並重新部署資源，我們預計未來將實現成本效率。

With this strong revenue performance and expense control, with expenses overall growing lower than revenue, we delivered record EBITDA of $1.2 billion, which was up 13% with an EBITDA margin of almost 31%, expanding over 110 basis points year-over-year. Our free cash flow remains strong at $2.3 billion year-to-date. Similar to last quarter, the year-over-year decline is primarily associated with timing changes within working capital. Last year, as the business emerged from the pandemic, we saw meaningful year-over-year increases in our deferred merchant bookings balances, which has since normalized this year. We remain pleased with our ongoing robust cash flow levels and record EBITDA levels, and we expect them to remain strong going forward.

憑藉強勁的收入表現和費用控制，加上費用整體成長低於收入，我們實現了創紀錄的 EBITDA 12 億美元，成長了 13%，EBITDA 利潤率接近 31%，年成長超過 110 個基點。今年迄今為止，我們的自由現金流仍然強勁，達到 23 億美元。與上季類似，年減主要與營運資金的時間變動有關。去年，隨著業務擺脫大流行的影響，我們的延期商家預訂餘額同比大幅增長，今年以來已經正常化。我們對持續強勁的現金流水準和創紀錄的 EBITDA 水準仍然感到滿意，並預計它們未來將保持強勁。

On the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with strong liquidity of $7.6 billion, driven by our unrestricted cash balance of $5.1 billion and our undrawn revolving line of credit of $2.5 billion, which provides us with plenty of cash to operate the business. From a debt perspective, our debt level remains at approximately $6.3 billion with an average cost of capital at only 3.7%. And with our expanding EBITDA, our gross leverage ratio has come down to 2.4x. As a result, we have continued to make progress towards our target gross leverage ratio of 2x and expect to make further progress in the coming quarters through EBITDA growth and potentially some early debt repayment.

在資產負債表上，本季結束時，我們的流動性強勁，達到76 億美元，這得益於我們51 億美元的無限制現金餘額和25 億美元的未提取循環信貸額度，這為我們運營業務提供了充足的現金。從債務角度來看，我們的債務水準仍約為 63 億美元，平均資本成本僅為 3.7%。隨著 EBITDA 的不斷擴大，我們的總槓桿率已降至 2.4 倍。因此，我們繼續朝著 2 倍的總槓桿率目標取得進展，並預計在未來幾季透過 EBITDA 成長和可能的部分提前債務償還取得進一步進展。

From a capital allocation perspective, we have been buying back our stock at record levels. We continue to believe that our stock price remains undervalued and does not reflect our expected long-term performance of the business. And given our liquidity and strong free cash flow levels, we believe buying back our stock on an accelerated basis is the best use of our capital to maximize shareholder returns. As a result, we bought back approximately $1.8 billion year-to-date or approximately 17 million shares, our largest level of repurchases to date, offsetting not only our COVID era dilution, but in fact, getting us to our lowest share count since 2015. And given our confidence in the long-term outlook of our company and the cash-generating power of our business as well as our commitment to maximizing returns for our shareholders, we have announced a new $5 billion share repurchase authorization, and we expect to continue buying back our stock opportunistically going forward.

從資本配置的角度來看，我們一直以創紀錄的水平回購股票。我們仍然認為，我們的股價仍然被低估，並且不能反映我們預期的業務長期表現。鑑於我們的流動性和強勁的自由現金流水平，我們相信加速回購股票是利用我們的資本最大化股東回報的最佳方式。結果，我們今年迄今回購了約18 億美元，即約1700 萬股股票，這是我們迄今為止最大的回購水平，不僅抵消了新冠病毒時代的稀釋，而且事實上，使我們的股票數量達到了2015 年以來的最低水平鑑於我們對公司的長期前景和業務的現金產生能力的信心，以及我們對股東回報最大化的承諾，我們宣布了新的 50 億美元股票回購授權，我們預計繼續機會主義地回購我們的股票。

So in closing, we are pleased to see the continued momentum in the business, delivering our best ever quarter. We have been able to deliver upon what we said we were going to do amid a significant period of transformation and corresponding uncertainty. Looking ahead, we are reiterating our full year outlook of double-digit top line growth with margin expansion. As for the fourth quarter, based on the uncertain geopolitical environment and its potential impact on travel, we expect gross bookings growth to be relatively in line with third quarter levels, with modest sequential acceleration in year-over-year revenue and EBITDA growth versus the third quarter.

最後，我們很高興看到業務的持續成長勢頭，實現了有史以來最好的季度業績。在一個重要的轉型時期和相應的不確定性時期，我們已經能夠兌現我們所說的要做的事情。展望未來，我們重申全年營收兩位數成長和利潤率擴張的前景。至於第四季度，基於不確定的地緣政治環境及其對旅行的潛在影響，我們預計總預訂量增長將與第三季度的水平相對一致，收入和EBITDA 增長與上年同期相比將出現適度的環比加速。第三季。

Overall, our execution and results this year give us the confidence that we are on the right path and that there is a huge opportunity in front of us to drive long-term profitable growth and to maximize shareholder returns. We look forward to updating you next quarter on our plans for 2024. And with that, I would now like to open the call for questions. Thank you.

總體而言，我們今年的執行和業績讓我們相信，我們正走在正確的道路上，我們面前有一個巨大的機會來推動長期盈利增長並實現股東回報最大化。我們期待在下個季度向您通報 2024 年計劃的最新情況。現在，我想開始提問環節。謝謝。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Eric Sheridan from Goldman Sachs.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自高盛的 Eric Sheridan。

Maybe two, if I can. In terms of Vrbo and the migration, how should we be thinking about post-migration elements of growth and how Vrbo will be tied deeper into One Key as a stimulant for growth on that brand as we look out beyond 2023 and into 2024? And with respect to the new buyback authorization, any guardrails, either aligned against annualized free cash flow or targets around liquidity about how you might deploy that $5 billion in the years ahead?

如果可以的話，也許兩個。就 Vrbo 和遷移而言，我們應該如何考慮遷移後的成長要素，以及當我們展望 2023 年和 2024 年時，Vrbo 將如何與 One Key 更深入地聯繫在一起，作為該品牌成長的刺激劑？至於新的回購授權，是否有任何防護措施，無論是與年化自由現金流一致，還是圍繞未來幾年如何部署這 50 億美元的流動性目標？

Thanks, Eric. I'll take the first one and maybe let Julie answer the question on buybacks. As far as Vrbo goes, obviously, as I said, we just literally finished the app migration, and it's not even -- people haven't even updated all their apps yet. So it will take a little time for us to be fully across, but we're talking about weeks. And then I think it's a build from there. You have to remember that going through the migration was actually a negative process, right? It was conversion negative for us to come across, switch the stacks, then optimize the stacks and improve them. So we're in the process now of having everything across and working on the improvement part and inflecting past where we were previously.

謝謝，埃里克。我會選擇第一個，也許讓朱莉回答有關回購的問題。就 Vrbo 而言，顯然，正如我所說，我們剛剛完成了應用程式遷移，而且還沒有——人們甚至還沒有更新他們所有的應用程式。所以我們需要一點時間才能完全理解，但我們談論的是幾週的時間。然後我認為這是從那裡開始的構建。你必須記住，遷移其實是一個消極的過程，對吧？我們遇到的轉換是負面的，切換堆疊，然後優化堆疊並改進它們。因此，我們現在正在處理所有事情並致力於改進部分並改變我們之前的狀態。

So one, the product will improve from here. We won't have the drag of the conversion drags we've had during this past year while we were migrating. And then there are many things to drive growth in the future, we believe, obviously, we believe greatly in One Key, it's a key differentiator in the VR space, it allows all our members across Expedia and HCOM, which are many more in number of humans to have the option of using their OneKeyCash on Vrbo instead of on a different VR platform or for other products. So there's a lot -- it's a way to pull out more customers into Vrbo. It's a way to make Vrbo decidedly better as a value proposition than its competition. And I think there's a number of other things we are doing. I mentioned in our last call, we will work to incorporate much more of the multiunit vacation rental properties. We actually have on our OTA brands that don't live on Vrbo yet that we will be moving.

因此，產品將從這裡開始改進。我們不會再受到去年遷移過程中所遇到的轉換阻力的影響。未來有很多事情可以推動成長，我們相信，顯然，我們非常相信 One Key，它是 VR 領域的關鍵差異化因素，它允許我們在 Expedia 和 HCOM 上的所有會員，這些會員的數量要多得多人們可以選擇在Vrbo 上使用OneKeyCash，而不是在不同的VR 平台或其他產品上使用。所以有很多——這是吸引更多客戶進入 Vrbo 的一種方式。這是一種使 Vrbo 的價值主張明顯優於其競爭對手的方法。我認為我們還在做很多其他事情。我在上次電話會議中提到，我們將努力整合更多的多單元度假租賃物業。實際上，我們的 OTA 品牌尚未在 Vrbo 上運行，但我們將進行遷移。

So there's many parts to our growth plan in Vrbo, but I think we're excited now. We had to get across this work so that we could again start optimizing, really push One Key fully and take advantage of some of these other pieces we've been waiting on to finish the migration so that we could then move this inventory and do other things that open up growth opportunities. So we feel good about how Vrbo is positioned. Obviously, this was a tough year of migration, but a lot of optimism for what we can do in the coming years with it.

因此，我們在 Vrbo 的成長計劃有很多部分，但我認為我們現在很興奮。我們必須完成這項工作，以便我們可以再次開始優化，真正完全推動一鍵並利用我們一直在等待完成遷移的其他一些部分，以便我們可以移動此庫存並執行其他操作能夠帶來增長機會的事情。所以我們對 Vrbo 的定位感覺很好。顯然，這是遷移的艱難一年，但我們對未來幾年可以做的事情非常樂觀。

And then as far as the $5 billion buyback authorization, we don't per se have any set guardrails, although I would say that generally speaking, we look to what our free cash flow levels are in the year, and obviously make a decision then where our stock price is and where we believe the valuation of the company is and what our long-term outlook is, make a call as to how much then pivots to buybacks. But at the same time, we've also got excess cash. And so if we wanted to be even more aggressive on what is per se, the free cash flow plan for the year, we could do that as well. So the short answer is it really depends, but we have a lot of flexibility there, and we intend to buy back our stock opportunistically.

然後就 50 億美元的回購授權而言，我們本身沒有任何設定的護欄，儘管我想說，一般來說，我們會考慮今年的自由現金流水平，然後顯然會做出決定我們的股價在哪裡，我們認為公司的估值在哪裡，以及我們的長期前景是什麼，然後打電話決定回購多少。但同時，我們也有多餘的現金。因此，如果我們想在今年的自由現金流計劃本身上更加積極，我們也可以這樣做。所以簡短的答案是，這確實取決於，但我們有很大的彈性，我們打算趁機回購我們的股票。

Our next question comes from Lee Horowitz from Deutsche Bank.

我們的下一個問題來自德意志銀行的 Lee Horowitz。

Peter, you talked about your business next year driving faster and more profitable growth, which presumably underwrite some top line reacceleration, yet you're a bit more cautious on the fourth quarter given some geopolitical concerns. I guess what gives you the confidence in sort of that accelerated outlook into 2024 despite the geopolitical concerns you guys highlighted as well as others in the market perhaps going out some incremental macro headwinds building for the travel industry?

彼得，您談到明年您的業務將推動更快、更有利可圖的成長，這可能會帶來一些收入的重新加速，但考慮到一些地緣政治擔憂，您對第四季度的態度更加謹慎。我猜是什麼讓您對 2024 年的加速前景充滿信心，儘管你們以及市場上的其他人都強調了地緣政治擔憂，可能會為旅遊業帶來一些增量的宏觀阻力？

Yes. Thanks, Lee. Look, I'm not opining as a world leader on the likelihood of geopolitical acceleration potentially in '24. I certainly hope not for all our sakes, but what we're seeing now, as we referred to, there was some short-term movement in early October that appeared to be from what was going on in the Middle East. That doesn't appear to be an ongoing thing, but there was some noise. So we are mindful of the potential volatility from that. But I would say we're more ambitious and more excited because, frankly, even the fourth quarter is just barely beginning to get the benefit, like when I talk about Vrbo being past the migration, it was like 2 days ago. So fourth quarter, we're in the middle of the fourth quarter. So getting a lot out of that now in the next 8 weeks is a lot harder than what we have ambition for next year. And if you take that across everything and you take that across One Key still being in relatively early days and so forth, it's just -- we're still like this is a big snowball we're pushing and it's starting to turn, but it's going to turn faster and faster.

是的。謝謝，李。看，我並不是作為世界領導人對 24 年地緣政治加速的可能性發表意見。我當然希望這不是為了我們所有人的利益，但正如我們所提到的，我們現在所看到的，十月初出現了一些短期走勢，這似乎是由中東正在發生的事情引起的。這似乎不是一個持續的事情，但確實有一些噪音。因此，我們注意到由此帶來的潛在波動。但我想說，我們更加雄心勃勃，更加興奮，因為坦白說，即使是第四季度也才剛開始受益，就像當我談到 Vrbo 已經完成遷移時，就像兩天前一樣。所以第四季度，我們正處於第四季中期。因此，在接下來的 8 週內取得許多成果比我們明年的目標要困難得多。如果你把它放在所有事情上，你把它放在還處於相對早期階段的一鍵等等上，那就是——我們仍然覺得這是一個我們正在推動的大雪球，它開始轉動，但它是會轉得越來越快。

So we have more ambition about our own ability to drive it next year and our own opportunity there. Obviously, there could be macro things that make it harder or easier on all of us. But we think relative to our competition, relative to where we've been, we're just going to be in a much better place. So that is what gives us ambition. It's not that we think the world will all come down and all wars will go away and everyone will have peace. It's that we think we're just going to be in a materially better spot as we're further along this journey.

因此，我們對明年的推動能力和機會抱持著更大的野心。顯然，宏觀因素可能會讓我們所有人的處境變得更困難或更容易。但我們認為，相對於我們的競爭對手，相對於我們過去的情況，我們將會處於一個更好的位置。這就是我們的雄心壯志。我們並不是認為世界將會崩潰，所有戰爭都會消失，每個人都會享有和平。我們認為，隨著我們在這段旅程中走得更遠，我們將處於物質上更好的境地。

Got it. And then maybe one follow-up on that. You talked about sort of leading into some international markets perhaps next year. I guess now with all of the tech migration behind you, are there any gating factors as it relates to the timing of when you may put some investment dollars to work there? Or how should we just sort of think about the phasing of sort of those broader global ambitions that you guys have into 2024?

知道了。然後也許會有一個後續行動。您談到也許明年會進入一些國際市場。我想現在所有的技術遷移都在你身後，是否有任何限制因素，因為它與你何時可以投入一些投資資金到那裡工作的時間有關？或者我們應該如何思考你們在 2024 年實現更廣泛的全球雄心的分階段？

Yes. I think technologically, there aren't a lot of gating items. I mentioned that we haven't -- we've only rolled One Key to the U.S. So rolling One Key along with leaning in more energy into certain places will be part of the strategy. But again, not a gating issue, but that has to happen and there is some technical work to getting that launched in other countries. It will come -- it's not a big lift. It's just something that will come as we roll out.

是的。我認為從技術上來說，沒有太多的門控項目。我提到我們還沒有——我們只是推出了通往美國的「一鍵」計畫。因此，推出「一鍵」計畫並在某些地方投入更多精力將成為該策略的一部分。但同樣，這不是一個門控問題，但這必須發生，並且需要一些技術工作才能在其他國家推出。它會來的——這不是一個很大的提升。這只是我們推出時就會出現的事情。

But more importantly, I'd say it's a balance. We believe we're equipped now. We believe we have the tools to compete better than we ever have. We believe we have a winning product. And as we all know, you've got to market back into these countries. I mentioned the better understanding of customers, which customers we want, how we get the right customers, how we find the highest lifetime value customers, things like that. So we're just -- it's really just about doing it in an orderly process. We're not going to just carpet-bomb the world. We're going to go selectively after the most valuable markets to us where we have the most right to win, and we're going to keep chipping away at it. But we're excited to go back on offense in the rest of the world.

但更重要的是，我想說這是一種平衡。我們相信我們現在已經裝備好了。我們相信我們擁有比以往更好的競爭工具。我們相信我們有一個成功的產品。眾所周知，您必須將市場重新推向這些國家。我提到了更了解客戶，我們想要哪些客戶，我們如何獲得合適的客戶，我們如何找到最高終身價值的客戶，諸如此類。所以我們只是——這實際上只是在有序的過程中進行。我們不會只是對世界進行地毯式轟炸。我們將有選擇地尋找對我們來說最有價值的市場，在那裡我們最有權利獲勝，並且我們將繼續努力開拓它。但我們很高興能夠在世界其他地方重新發動攻擊。

Our next question comes from Kevin Kopelman from Cowen.

我們的下一個問題來自考恩的凱文·科佩爾曼。

This is (inaudible) on for Kevin. So wondering if you can provide some color on the regional performance quarter-to-date? And also, what are the cost savings or levers that you expect to see from the tech migration as we look into 2024?

這是凱文的（聽不清楚）。那麼想知道您是否可以提供一些有關本季度迄今為止的區域業績的資訊？此外，展望 2024 年，您期望從技術遷移中看到哪些成本節約或槓桿？

Yes. Sorry, you broke up a little bit, but I'll take a stab at it. I think in terms of the regional, what we've seen is, as I mentioned, APAC and Latin America have been faster-growing markets for everybody. Basically, it's a function of where different regions are in terms of their rebound post-COVID. North America and Europe and APAC -- excuse me, EMEA are more stable (inaudible) rebound earlier and have been in a more consistent state. We've seen the same in our business, but our business is less exposed to APAC than it is to, obviously, North America, somewhat less exposed to Europe. So there's differences there. But what we've seen and I referred to is what we're seeing is pretty much around the globe, we've been able to hold or grow share even in markets where we have relatively small share.

是的。抱歉，你們分手了一點，但我會努力解決的。我認為就區域而言，正如我所提到的，我們所看到的是，亞太地區和拉丁美洲對每個人來說都是成長更快的市場。基本上，它取決於不同地區在新冠疫情後的反彈情況。北美、歐洲和亞太地區——對不起，歐洲、中東和非洲地區的反彈更早，並且一直處於更穩定的狀態。我們在我們的業務中也看到了同樣的情況，但我們的業務在亞太地區的暴露程度明顯低於北美，在歐洲的暴露程度也稍低一些。所以這裡面是有差異的。但我們所看到的，我提到的是，我們所看到的幾乎在全球範圍內，即使在我們所佔份額相對較小的市場中，我們也能夠保持或增加份額。

Again, we're eating into the pie and different of those markets, we have different aggression for -- but remember, we've done this basically with (inaudible) tied behind our back. We're trying to do what we could with the levers we had. And increasingly, we have more and more levers and better and better product and all of that will make us more competitive, we believe, as we go forward. As far as the efficiencies go, I think we've been saying this for a while, but we've had these huge tasks that we've undertaken to get across the transformation, do these migrations, et cetera. Everything gets faster and easier.

再說一遍，我們正在分食這塊蛋糕，對於不同的市場，我們有不同的侵略性——但請記住，我們基本上是在（聽不清楚）被綁在背後的情況下做到這一點的。我們正在嘗試利用我們擁有的槓桿來做我們能做的事情。我們相信，隨著我們不斷前進，我們擁有越來越多的槓桿和越來越好的產品，所有這些都將使我們更具競爭力。就效率而言，我想我們已經這麼說了有一段時間了，但我們已經承擔了這些艱鉅的任務來完成轉型、進行這些遷移等等。一切都變得更快更容易。

So think of it as either more output with the same amount of energy or opportunities, whether it be in cloud, as Julie referred to our other licensing and maintenance and other opportunities and which work we choose to do, that there's this opportunity now to stop. We've grown for quite a bit of time now in our -- particularly in product and tech. We no longer need to grow our base of overhead in order to grow our business much faster. So as those lines diverge, we become more efficient, and that's what we're talking about.

因此，可以將其視為具有相同能量或機會的更多產出，無論是在雲端中，正如朱莉提到的我們的其他許可和維護以及其他機會以及我們選擇做的工作，現在有機會停止。我們現在已經成長了相當長一段時間，特別是在產品和技術方面。我們不再需要為了更快地發展我們的業務而增加我們的管理費用基礎。因此，當這些界限分開時，我們就會變得更有效率，這就是我們正在談論的。

Our next question comes from Naved Khan from B. Riley Securities.

我們的下一個問題來自 B. Riley Securities 的 Naved Khan。

A couple of questions here. So just on the consumer, are you seeing any sign of the consumer weakening or maybe trading down or just taking longer to book anything there? And then on the Vrbo migration, Peter, I think you had earlier talked about how the website piece was done and the app was the one that was remaining and that, I think, has been completed just in the last week or so. But anything you can share on the website migration and how that might be yielding results? Any early signs on that?

這裡有幾個問題。那麼，就消費者而言，您是否看到任何消費者疲軟的跡象，或者可能會降價，或者只是需要更長的時間在那裡預訂任何東西？然後，關於 Vrbo 遷移，Peter，我想您之前已經談到了網站部分是如何完成的，而應用程式是剩下的部分，我認為它是在上週左右完成的。但是您可以在網站遷移方面分享什麼以及這會如何產生結果嗎？有什麼早期跡象嗎？

Sure. So the first part of your question, we haven't seen really anything on the consumer side. We keep looking. But there's definitely nothing obvious and you'd have to squint it really hard and look by subregion to try to (inaudible) and cut it by price point and a lot of things to really see anything noticeable. Interestingly and anecdotally, we've seen that customers who have gotten OneKeyCash where they didn't have it before, et cetera, or in some cases, as part of One Key, we introduced higher discounts for our silver and gold members at certain properties that customers are typically using it to get a better room type as opposed to take the money to the bottom line. So they're actually using the available capital they had in mind just for more rather than saving the money.

當然。所以你問題的第一部分，我們在消費者方面還沒有看到任何東西。我們繼續尋找。但絕對沒有什麼明顯的東西，你必須非常努力地瞇著眼睛，按次區域來嘗試（聽不清）並按價格點和很多東西來削減它，才能真正看到任何值得注意的東西。有趣且有趣的是，我們發現客戶在以前沒有獲得OneKeyCash 的情況下獲得了OneKeyCash，或者在某些情況下，作為「一鍵」計劃的一部分，我們在某些​​酒店為銀卡和金卡會員提供了更高的折扣客戶通常使用它來獲得更好的房間類型，而不是把錢花在利潤上。因此，他們實際上是在使用他們想要的可用資本來獲得更多，而不是省錢。

So again, that's just an anecdote, but there does not appear to be any major shift going on. Of course, we have historically and still our strongest in the mid and upper parts of the market as opposed to the lowest end of the market. And that, again, may be moving slightly, but we have not seen any broad consumer change in habit.

再說一次，這只是一個軼事，但似乎沒有任何重大轉變。當然，從歷史上看，我們在中高端市場而不是最低端市場擁有最強的實力。而且，這可能會略有變化，但我們還沒有看到消費者習慣發生任何廣泛的變化。

As far as your second question goes, as I mentioned, the first part of moving the website was going backwards to go forwards, was consolidating it. Vrbo is now getting the benefit of a lot of successful winners that we had rolled out on our OTA brands across Expedia and Hotels.com, and now it will benefit from many of the things that have won there. So we're in the middle of testing in all the things that have won historically on the OTA brands, getting the best-in-class of maps and other things, searching store and so forth.

至於你的第二個問題，正如我所提到的，行動網站的第一部分是從後退到前進，是鞏固它。 Vrbo 現在正從我們在 Expedia 和 Hotels.com 上的 OTA 品牌上推出的許多成功獲獎者中獲益，現在它將受益於許多在那裡獲獎的事物。因此，我們正在測試 OTA 品牌歷史上贏得的所有功能，獲得一流的地圖和其他功能，搜尋商店等等。

So it's -- I'd say we're still in that journey. I'd say we're still behind in terms of conversion, in terms of pre- versus post-migration on the website, but we are on the rise and catching up, and we expect to inflect past where we were (inaudible) and the app so far has appeared to have done better, and our hopes are that we'll see less going backwards and more going forwards faster. So we're directionally going up from here, but we did have to take a little bit of a step back as we migrate.

所以我想說我們仍然處於這段旅程中。我想說，就網站上的遷移前與遷移後而言，我們在轉換方面仍然落後，但我們正在崛起並迎頭趕上，我們預計會超越我們原來的水平（聽不清），到目前為止，該應用程序似乎做得更好，我們希望我們能看到更少的倒退和更多更快的前進。所以我們從這裡定向向上，但在遷移時我們確實必須後退一步。

Our next question comes from Jed Kelly from Oppenheimer.

我們的下一個問題來自奧本海默的傑德凱利。

Two, if I may. Can you just talk about some of the marketing efficiencies you plan -- you think you'll get around brand now being able to use One Key and highlight your three brands? And then just going in now that the tech migration is complete, how do you view growing EBITDA dollars versus EBITDA margin?

如果可以的話，兩個。您能否談談您計劃的一些行銷效率——您認為您現在可以使用「一鍵」並突出您的三個品牌來繞過品牌？現在技術遷移已經完成，您如何看待不斷增長的 EBITDA 美元與 EBITDA 利潤率？

I'll take the first part and maybe have Julie take the second. I would say that from a marketing efficiency standpoint, you've seen us just begin to market more with the launch of One Key sort of the brands together. And that is a journey that we will continue to learn on and grow on in terms of how to optimize our brand spend and all of our performance marketing spend to optimize the best place to bring a customer in and then the best way to bring them around our universe of products.

我會承擔第一部分，也許讓朱莉承擔第二部分。我想說，從行銷效率的角度來看，您已經看到我們剛開始透過推出「一鍵」品牌來進行更多行銷。這是一個我們將繼續學習和成長的旅程，如何優化我們的品牌支出和所有績效行銷支出，以優化吸引客戶的最佳場所，然後是吸引他們的最佳方式我們的產品系列。

But I would say what we're most excited about is the ability to get customers to cross shop and to get them to use -- stay in our group of brands and spend their money there, and that gives us a lot more opportunity to drive direct business because we already have a big base of customers in each of those brands that we can now bring to other brands, whether it's an HCOM customer who needs a flight or a car or whether it's an Expedia customer who needs a Vrbo, that ability to keep everything in the universe, get people to use that currency across. As we all know, the more direct business we have, the more margin it drives and then we have the latitude to invest or not as much as we want into performance marketing, driving new customer acquisition. And again, we're getting smarter and smarter about who we go after, how we go after them and how we optimize for the lifetime value of that customer base.

但我想說的是，我們最興奮的是能夠讓顧客交叉購物並讓他們使用——留在我們的品牌集團中並在那裡花錢，這給了我們更多的機會來推動直接業務，因為我們在每個品牌中都擁有龐大的客戶群，現在我們可以將這些客戶群帶到其他品牌，無論是需要航班或汽車的HCOM 客戶，還是需要Vrbo 的Expedia 客戶，這種能力為了保留宇宙中的一切，讓人們在各處使用該貨幣。眾所周知，我們擁有的直接業務越多，帶來的利潤就越高，然後我們就可以自由地投資或不投資績效行銷，從而推動新客戶的獲取。再說一遍，我們對於我們的目標對象、如何目標以及如何優化該客戶群的終身價值變得越來越聰明。

So I think that's how we think about it. In terms of the practical like have we figured out all the nuts and bolts of the best way to promote the brands together. The best way to promote One Key, I think we're still on a learning journey there, but we're excited about it. And the One Key work was awesome and you're going to start to see the brands more present in other brands as time goes on. But I think the big opportunity, as I mentioned about new members, we took a group that didn't have membership basically, and turned them into new members in a big pool of membership where they can get a lot of benefit across a bunch of different products that they couldn't get before from Vrbo.

所以我認為這就是我們的想法。在實際方面，我們已經找到了共同推廣品牌的最佳方式的所有具體細節。推廣「一鍵」的最佳方式，我認為我們仍處於學習之旅，但我們對此感到興奮。一鍵工作非常棒，隨著時間的推移，你將開始看到這些品牌更多地出現在其他品牌中。但我認為這是一個很大的機會，正如我提到的新成員，我們把一個基本上沒有會員資格的團體，把他們變成一個大會員庫中的新成員，在那裡他們可以從一堆會員中獲得很多好處。他們以前無法從 Vrbo 獲得不同的產品。

So that's what's exciting to us. Our goal is to drive much more direct business through that. And as I think we've said before, we look at spend for loyalty, for marketing, for any kind of pricing and discounting things we do, all as one pool of capital that's focused on the best way to acquire and retain customers, and that's really -- so we're happy to trade those dollars off to the most efficient way to drive the overall business. And that's what you're going to see us do over time more and more.

這就是令我們興奮的地方。我們的目標是透過這一點推動更直接的業務。正如我認為我們之前所說的那樣，我們將忠誠度、行銷、我們所做的任何定價和折扣活動的支出視為一個資本池，專注於獲取和留住客戶的最佳方式，而這確實是——所以我們很高興將這些美元換成最有效的方式來推動整體業務。隨著時間的推移，您將會看到我們越來越常這樣做。

And I think the short answer on the EBITDA question post tech migration is we expect to drive obviously both. We want to have strong EBITDA dollar growth and we want to have margin expansion. We're not going to need to invest as much as we have in the past. As Peter said earlier, now the tech migration is complete. We should be starting to get more efficiencies out of the machine here by deprecating systems, redeploying resources, cutting all the incremental costs associated with that and just getting more output, getting more leverage from all of the goodness that we've been investing in, in the past.

我認為對技術遷移後 EBITDA 問題的簡短回答是，我們預計顯然會推動兩者的發展。我們希望 EBITDA 實現強勁成長，並實現利潤率擴張。我們不需要像過去那樣進行大量投資。正如彼得之前所說，現在技術遷移已經完成。我們應該開始透過棄用系統、重新部署資源、削減與此相關的所有增量成本、獲得更多產出、從我們一直投資的所有優勢中獲得更多槓桿作用，來提高機器的效率，在過去。

Now we are also wanting to be on the offensive as we said. So there may be times in areas that we think we need to invest, still driving EBITDA growth and maybe not as much EBITDA margin in certain situations. But for the most part, we're committed to both, but this is a year of offense and so we want to have that flexibility.

現在我們也想像我們所說的那樣採取進攻。因此，有時我們認為需要投資的領域仍能推動 EBITDA 成長，但在某些情況下可能沒有那麼高的 EBITDA 利潤率。但在大多數情況下，我們都致力於這兩方面，但今年是進攻的一年，所以我們希望擁有這種靈活性。

Our next question comes from John Colantuoni from Jefferies.

我們的下一個問題來自 Jefferies 的 John Colantuoni。

This is Chris on for John. So there have been some questions around the trajectory of alternative accommodation (inaudible) growth across the industry broadly. Could you elaborate on kind of how recent demand trends (inaudible) Vrbo and beyond the onetime impacts from things like the tech migration and Maui fires, have you seen any changes in customer preference for vacation rentals?

這是克里斯替約翰發言。因此，整個產業的替代住宿（聽不清楚）成長軌跡存在一些問題。您能否詳細說明 Vrbo 最近的需求趨勢（聽不清楚）以及除了技術遷移和毛伊島火災等事件的一次性影響之外，您是否看到客戶對度假租賃的偏好發生了任何變化？

Yes. Thanks, Chris. I think for us, and we're a little differently situated than our competition. But for us, we saw a huge COVID era boom when everyone was trying to be in their own house and rent their own space and whatever. We definitely saw a little bit of pressure on that this past year as that kind of came off. But in terms of how things are progressing, once you kind of reset for that, we think demand is pretty stable, and there's lots of opportunity for growth. In the other parts of the business, our friends across the way, they play in urban much more in shared accommodations. We do think there's opportunity in urban, and we are seeing -- we are building supply in many areas, but we are sticking to our knitting of the whole home/whole apartment experience as opposed to shared spaces, et cetera. We think there's lots of runway there, and there will be probably more supply coming on as homeowners struggle with mortgage rates and other things. There's a good opportunity for supply there.

是的。謝謝，克里斯。我認為對我們來說，我們的處境與競爭對手略有不同。但對我們來說，我們看到了新冠時代的巨大繁榮，當時每個人都試圖留在自己的房子裡，租自己的空間等等。去年，隨著這種情況的發生，我們確實看到了一點壓力。但就事情的進展而言，一旦你對此進行了重新調整，我們認為需求相當穩定，並且有很多成長的機會。在業務的其他部分，我們對面的朋友，他們在城市裡更多地在共享住宿中玩耍。我們確實認為城市中有機會，而且我們正在看到——我們正在許多領域建立供應，但我們堅持編織整個家庭/整個公寓的體驗，而不是共享空間等。我們認為那裡有很多跑道，而且隨著房主為抵押貸款利率和其他問題而苦苦掙扎，可能會有更多的供應。那裡有一個很好的供應機會。

So we still see plenty of opportunity in compressed places and compressed time, banded time periods in different areas. So I think we feel good about going back on offense. We've been playing, this is one of the areas we've been playing a little bit with our hands tied behind our back. But macro in the whole home space, we expect there to be growth again, barring geopolitical, who knows. And I can't speak for the other shared accommodation spaces and other things, that's not where we're focused.

因此，我們仍然在不同地區的壓縮地點和壓縮時間、帶狀時間段中看到大量機會。所以我認為我們對於重新進攻感覺很好。我們一直在玩，這是我們一直在雙手綁在背後玩的領域之一。但從整個家居領域的宏觀來看，我們預計會再次出現成長，除非地緣政治，誰知道呢。我不能談論其他共享住宿空間和其他事情，這不是我們關注的重點。

Our next question comes from Anthony Post from Bank of America.

我們的下一個問題來自美國銀行的安東尼·波斯特。

With bookings growing 7% this quarter and you're suggesting similar growth next quarter, how do you think that positions you for top line growth next year? You mentioned maybe accelerating off of this year. So just thinking about the bookings growth rate and implications. And then second, I know there's been a lot of effort to increase app users versus maybe using search marketing. Are you seeing anything in the customer metrics, and I apologize if it's already been asked, but anything in the customer metrics that show better repeat rates or better return on that ad spend than you were getting, say, a few years ago?

本季度的預訂量增長了 7%，您建議下季度也有類似的增長，您認為這將如何為您明年的營收成長做好準備？你提到今年可能會加速。因此，只需考慮一下預訂成長率和影響即可。其次，我知道與使用搜尋行銷相比，我們付出了很多努力來增加應用程式用戶。您是否在客戶指標中看到了任何內容，如果已經有人問過，我很抱歉，但客戶指標中是否有任何內容顯示出比幾年前更好的重複率或更好的廣告支出回報？

I'll take the first one. I mean as far as the bookings, I think this past quarter and the subsequent Q4 guidance that we gave, those are both indicative of some shorter-term things that have occurred. So as we mentioned, we were unfortunately impacted by the Maui fires that brought down gross bookings lower than we had expected in Q3, and we're being thoughtful in our Q4 guidance of what could potentially be an impact associated with the uncertainty in the geopolitical environment.

我就拿第一個。我的意思是，就預訂而言，我認為上個季度和隨後我們給出的第四季度指導，這些都表明已經發生了一些短期事情。因此，正如我們所提到的，我們不幸地受到了毛伊島火災的影響，導致第三季度的總預訂量低於我們的預期，我們在第四季度的指導中正在考慮與地緣政治的不確定性相關的潛在影響。環境。

So we'll see how that plays out for the quarter. So early in the quarter, we've seen very little noise at this point, but that doesn't necessarily provides an indication of what's going to happen in 2024. And for all the things that Peter mentioned that we have completed and all the momentum we have in the underlying health of the business and coming out of the tech migration and all the goodness that's coming from the One Key launch and the growing base of app and loyalty members and all of that kind of adding on top of each other, as we incrementally roll through the year, should drive that gross bookings up.

所以我們將看看本季的情況如何。因此，在本季度初，我們此時幾乎沒有看到任何噪音，但這並不一定表明 2024 年將會發生什麼。對於 Peter 提到的我們已經完成的所有事情以及我們擁有業務的基本健康狀況和技術遷移的成果，以及來自一鍵發布和不斷增長的應用程式和忠誠會員基礎以及所有這些相互疊加的好處，我們將逐步推進這一年，應該會推動總預訂量的上升。

And I'll just add, and I'll take the second part. But I wish I could tell you that this migration is like we flip a switch when it's over and everything goes 2x, but it is -- you're growing out of a period of lots of change with all the tools you need to go faster, but they build on each other over time. So our first week out of the gate is not going to be like our 52nd week out of the gate. And so this is something where there's some noise in the numbers as we alluded to from geopolitics and other things, we'll see where it ends up landing, but our enthusiasm for what next year can bring is built on the underlying building blocks, not on the -- what is the trend line today or what is the macro.

我就補充一下，然後我將討論第二部分。但我希望我能告訴你，這次遷移就像我們在結束後扳動開關一樣，一切都會變成原來的兩倍，但事實是——你正在經歷一個充滿變化的時期，並擁有加快速度所所需的所有工具，但隨著時間的推移，它們會相互依賴。因此，我們離開大門的第一周不會像我們離開大門的第 52 週一樣。因此，正如我們從地緣政治和其他方面提到的那樣，數字中存在一些噪音，我們將看到它最終落地的地方，但我們對明年能夠帶來的熱情是建立在底層基礎上的，而不是建立在基礎基礎之上的。關於——今天的趨勢線是什麼或宏觀是什麼。

So that's where our enthusiasm comes from. As for the metrics you're asking about, yes, absolutely. I mean it was the understanding and knowing that app members, in particular, our highest producing customers have the highest return rates, the highest CLV et cetera, was the reason we leaned so heavily into app. It may not be that surprising, but that's the case. Obviously, they have a propensity to come direct more, which saves us money is remarketing them.

這就是我們的熱情的來源。至於您所詢問的指標，是的，絕對是如此。我的意思是，我們對應用程式會員的理解和了解，特別是我們產量最高的客戶，擁有最高的回報率、最高的 CLV 等，這就是我們如此依賴應用程式的原因。這可能並不令人驚訝，但事實就是如此。顯然，他們更傾向於直接來訪，這可以為我們節省再行銷的費用。

So there's lots of elements that make those members better for us. We have invested both directly and acquiring them through marketing as well as doing much, much more in the product to move customers into the app for all of those reasons. And we're still seeing that those cohorts still perform better even as we pushed more and more people, they still perform better than a guest or a member who's not on the app, et cetera. So those statistics have held up. We keep pushing it. You're going to see us keep pushing it. We are going to be app first in terms of product, in terms of where you see the most innovation coming and coming fastest.

因此，有許多因素可以使這些成員對我們變得更好。基於所有這些原因，我們直接投資並透過行銷獲取它們，並在產品上做了很多很多事情，以將客戶吸引到應用程式中。我們仍然看到，即使我們推動了越來越多的人，這些群體的表現仍然更好，他們的表現仍然比訪客或未使用應用程式的會員等表現更好。所以這些統計數據是成立的。我們不斷推動它。你會看到我們繼續推動它。在產品方面，在你看到最多創新和最快出現的地方方面，我們將首先應用程式。

So we are fully leaned into getting customers into our best product, making our app our best product and experience and making sure all of that innovation I talked about is happening first and foremost in the app, so we get more people in it, more people into the state we like and then, of course, hopefully, working between our apps as they enjoy the benefits of our loyalty program. So that's, yes to all of that, the numbers hold up, we've seen the benefit, and that's why we keep pushing it.

因此，我們完全致力於讓客戶使用我們最好的產品，使我們的應用程式成為我們最好的產品和體驗，並確保我談到的所有創新首先發生在應用程式中，這樣我們就能讓更多的人參與進來，更多的人進入我們喜歡的狀態，然後，當然，希望在我們的應用程式之間工作，因為它們享受我們的忠誠度計劃的好處。所以，對於所有這些，數字是成立的，我們已經看到了好處，這就是我們不斷推動它的原因。

Our next question comes from Tom Champion from Piper Sandler.

我們的下一個問題來自 Piper Sandler 的 Tom Champion。

Peter, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the growth you're seeing out of China. Maybe it was on the B2B side. It sounded quite strong. And then, Julie, a question for you. Going back to the buyback, the size is kind of eye-popping. How did you arrive at that amount being appropriate? And what's the total in the plan as of today, including the existing plus new?

彼得，我想知道您是否可以談談您在中國看到的成長。也許是在 B2B 方面。聽起來相當強烈。然後，朱莉，問你一個問題。回到回購，規模有點令人瞠目結舌。您是如何得出合適的金額的？截至今天，計劃的總數是多少，包括現有的和新的？

Yes, I mean our B2B business, we have a nice business in China. China, as you know, is a tough place to compete on a B2C basis and really none of the Western companies do anymore. So we don't have that benefit. On the B2B side, we're seeing a nice pickup. But I'll remind you that airlift out of China is still well below pre-COVID levels. There were some recent announcements in the last week of increasing flights between China and the U.S., which is a good story, but it's still not a massive story. So you still have substantially less airlift out of China into most of the west. And -- but -- so it's not going to be -- again, it's not going to be a snap your finger and it's back to 2019 levels, but I think it's going to be a nice tailwind for a long time as hopefully, relations improve and more travel opens up. There's visa issues in China and other things.

是的，我的意思是我們的 B2B 業務，我們在中國有很好的業務。如你所知，中國是一個很難在 B2C 基礎上競爭的地方，而且實際上沒有一家西方公司已經這樣做了。所以我們沒有這個好處。在 B2B 方面，我們看到了良好的成長。但我要提醒您的是，從中國空運出境的數量仍遠低於新冠疫情前的水平。上週有一些消息宣布增加中美之間的航班​​，這是一個好消息，但仍然不是一個大新聞。因此，從中國到西方大部分地區的空運仍然少得多。而且——但是——所以這不會是——再說一次，這不會是彈指一揮間的事情，它會回到2019 年的水平，但我認為這將在很長一段時間內成為一個很好的推動力，希望關係能夠實現。改善並開放更多旅行。中國還有簽證問題和其他問題。

So we're seeing some good progress there. We power some of the local players in our B2B business, off-line travel agents and online. And there's definitely a pickup of travel. Some of that is intra-Asia. Some is even intra-China, but for the big pickup, there is a piece that we really haven't gotten to yet, which is getting China back to real international travel at pre-COVID levels, which will take some time. But it's a nice tailwind, obviously, mainly for our B2B business, and that business has a lot of tailwind, so it's just another one for us.

所以我們看到了一些好的進展。我們為 B2B 業務、線下旅行社和線上旅行社的一些本地參與者提供支援。旅行肯定會有所增加。其中一些是亞洲內部的。有些甚至是在中國境內，但對於大幅回升，我們還沒有真正做到這一點，那就是讓中國恢復到新冠疫情前的真正國際旅行水平，這需要一些時間。但顯然，這對我們的 B2B 業務來說是一個很好的順風，而且該業務有很多順風，所以這對我們來說只是另一個順風。

And as far as the $5 billion buyback, I mean, if you look at how much we've bought back just year-to-date, it's what, a little over 2x of that, so this is meant to be a multiyear, but we feel definitely very comfortable with this level and with the fact that we know we're going to be having growing free cash flow. And so we thought this was the right amount to go out with. So we're not doing an annual review, if you will, but not also making it so far out. So we thought it was a good healthy balance. As far as what's left in the plan today, there's very, very, very little. So this is really, I would see this as sort of the new and existing launch.

至於 50 億美元的回購，我的意思是，如果你看看我們今年迄今為止回購了多少，那就是，略多於 2 倍，所以這意味著是一個多年期，但是我們對這個水平絕對感到非常滿意，而且我們知道我們將擁有不斷增長的自由現金流。所以我們認為這是適合外出的金額。因此，如果您願意的話，我們不會進行年度審查，但也不會進行得太遠。所以我們認為這是一個很好的健康平衡。就今天計畫中剩下的東西來說，已經非常非常非常少了。所以這確實是，我認為這是一種新的和現有的發布。

Our next question comes from Deepak Mathivanan from Wolfe Research.

我們的下一個問題來自沃爾夫研究中心的迪帕克·馬蒂瓦南。

This is Zach on for Deepak. I just wanted to ask about how Hotels.com, like consumer behavior has been performing, given the change in incentives from the One Key launch?

這是迪帕克的紮克。我只是想問一下，鑑於一鍵推出後激勵措施的變化，Hotels.com 的消費者行為表現如何？

Yes. Thanks, Zach. As I mentioned in my comments, we've seen -- we were prepared for some dislocation and some people being upset. Obviously, there have been a few, but actually, it's been considerably less than we expected and the behavior of the customer base has been frankly better than we anticipated. (inaudible) we had a number of ways we were going to make that right with our customers and continue to do. But in general, we've seen less unhappiness and generally behavior that's consistent with their prior buying behaviors by and large.

是的。謝謝，扎克。正如我在評論中提到的，我們已經看到——我們已經準備好應對一些混亂和一些人的不安。顯然，有一些，但實際上，它比我們預期的要少得多，而且坦白說，客戶群的行為比我們預期的要好。 （聽不清楚）我們有多種方法可以與客戶達成一致，並將繼續這樣做。但總的來說，我們看到的不滿情緒有所減少，而且整體行為與他們先前的購買行為大致一致。

There are some exceptions, and we've had some programs to help with our most valued customers there. But again, we think we're moving that into a really good state with being a gold or even platinum member of One Key and ton of benefits that come with that. And as I alluded to, we're starting to see them use their OneKeyCash on Expedia to buy other things. So it's the beginnings of what we are trying to ferment, which is this idea that while it may not be quite as rich, it's much more flexible. You can use it for many more things and with the improved member discounts and other added benefits we've added to the program, you can get just as much benefit out of the program, just built slightly different way and now way more flexible.

也有一些例外，我們已經制定了一些計劃來幫助我們最尊貴的客戶。但我們再次認為，我們正在將其轉變為一個非常好的狀態，成為一鍵的黃金甚至白金會員以及隨之而來的大量好處。正如我所提到的，我們開始看到他們在 Expedia 上使用 OneKeyCash 購買其他東西。因此，這是我們正在嘗試發酵的想法的開始，即雖然它可能不那麼豐富，但它更靈活。您可以將它用於更多的事情，並且通過改進的會員折扣和我們添加到該計劃中的其他附加福利，您可以從該計劃中獲得同樣多的好處，只是構建方式略有不同，現在更加靈活。

So in general, we were pleased. I'd say if we took the over-under, it was definitely better than we had hoped and (inaudible) it remains that way, and we feel pretty good about how it's trending.

所以總的來說，我們很高興。我想說，如果我們接受了上下，它肯定比我們希望的要好，並且（聽不清楚）它仍然如此，而且我們對它的趨勢感覺非常好。

Our next question comes from Richard Clarke from Bernstein.

我們的下一個問題來自伯恩斯坦的理查德·克拉克。

Just the first one, thinking about your growth into 2024 and beyond and the ability to keep B2B revenues growing in the double-digit level. What visibility do you have of future deals or upside within your current deals to keep delivering that level of growth?

只是第一個，考慮您到 2024 年及以後的增長以及保持 B2B 收入以兩位數水平增長的能力。您對未來交易或當前交易的優勢有什麼了解，以保持這種增長水平？

Yes. I'd say we feel quite good about our continued growth of the B2B business. As I mentioned, we're still finalizing our plans for next year. So we're not committing to any numbers or anything. But in terms of double-digit growth, we feel confident that the B2B business can continue to grow based on a number of reasons. One, we are constantly adding new partners. And like same-store sales, first year new partner doesn't perform like a second year partner, and so people mature into performance. So we've got a runway of that.

是的。我想說，我們對 B2B 業務的持續成長感到非常滿意。正如我所提到的，我們仍在敲定明年的計畫。所以我們不會承諾任何數字或任何東西。但就兩位數成長而言，基於多種原因，我們對 B2B 業務能夠持續成長充滿信心。第一，我們不斷增加新的合作夥伴。與同店銷售一樣，第一年的新合作夥伴的表現並不像第二年的合作夥伴，因此人們的表現會逐漸成熟。所以我們已經有一條跑道了。

We have an expectation of what we continue to sell into in the marketplace, whether it's offline travel agents, new partners on our APIs or on our platform. We've got a number of initiatives designed to make our products even more appealing, whether it's new flexibility and how our technology works for our partners, how they can choose the best price, how they can put the best pieces together. So we have a number of initiatives that are all kind of built -- that all build up to what we think is good visibility into continued strong growth in that business.

我們對繼續在市場上銷售的產品抱有期望，無論是線下旅行社、API 或平台上的新合作夥伴。我們採取了許多舉措，旨在使我們的產品更具吸引力，無論是新的靈活性，還是我們的技術如何為我們的合作夥伴發揮作用，他們如何選擇最優惠的價格，以及如何將最好的產品組合在一起。因此，我們有許多旨在實現的舉措，所有這些舉措都是為了我們認為該業務持續強勁增長的良好可見性。

And maybe if I can just ask one follow-up to a question someone asked earlier. Just on the One Key launch, I guess there's been some questions around what's the cost to you of rolling that out? And maybe could you quantify what's been the level of contra revenue you've had to include to fulfill the decent growth you've seen there?

也許我可以針對某人之前提出的問題提出一個後續問題。就在「一鍵」發佈時，我想大家都在問推出這項功能的成本是多少？也許您可以量化一下為了實現您在那裡看到的體面增長而必須包括的對銷收入水平是多少？

Yes. Well, I would say that in principle, when we were rolling it out, the idea was that between our collective loyalty programs, it would not be net additive to the cost. It would be allocated differently among our customers and the benefits would be spread more evenly across our base of customers. So you can think of it as kind of a zero-sum game in terms of total expected dollars expended in contra revenue.

是的。嗯，我想說，原則上，當我們推出它時，我們的想法是，在我們的集體忠誠度計劃之間，它不會對成本產生淨增加。它將在我們的客戶之間進行不同的分配，並且利益將在我們的客戶群中更均勻地分配。因此，就對銷收入的預期總支出而言，您可以將其視為零和遊戲。

Now there were other benefits, as I mentioned, more member discounts, other things built into our platinum level and other. So there are some other pieces that added other value outside of just what you see in kind of the contra revenue space. But that was designed to kind of be a zero-sum-ish game. And as I alluded to, we held some back to help bring along our Hotels.com customers, et cetera, some of which we've expended. But all in all, it's basically been as good or better than we thought in terms of a cost exercise. We still have a long way to go to get all the benefits on the growth side of it. That's something we continue to work on.

正如我所提到的，現在還有其他好處，更多的會員折扣，我們白金級別中內建的其他東西等等。因此，除了您在相反收入空間中看到的內容之外，還有一些其他部分增加了其他價值。但這是一種零和遊戲。正如我所提到的，我們保留了一些資金來幫助吸引我們的 Hotels.com 客戶等等，其中一些我們已經花費了。但總而言之，在成本方面，它基本上與我們想像的一樣好，甚至更好。要獲得其成長方面的所有好處，我們還有很長的路要走。這是我們繼續努力的事情。

And as I mentioned, it takes some time to come through the numbers. But in terms of the cost side, I think we've made that transition, we are incurring roughly a similar -- think of it as a similar overall cost against the revenue margin across the whole business. And now we just have a lot more people engaged in the program. So we think the net positive on the growth side and shouldn't really cost us in terms of -- think of it as revenue margin, shouldn't really cost us any more than we were expending before.

正如我所提到的，需要一些時間來了解這些數字。但就成本而言，我認為我們已經實現了這一轉變，我們正在經歷大致相似的情況——將其視為與整個業務的收入利潤率相似的總體成本。現在我們有更多的人參與該計劃。因此，我們認為成長方面的淨正面影響，不應該真正讓我們付出代價——將其視為收入利潤率，不應該真正讓我們付出比之前支出更多的代價。

Our next question comes from Mark Mahaney from Evercore ISI.

我們的下一個問題來自 Evercore ISI 的 Mark Mahaney。

The feature that you had on the app for quite some time, I think, maybe on the website, too, with ChatGPT, can you just talk about what kind of traction that feature is getting and what you'd like to get out of that in the future?

我想，您在應用程式上使用的功能已經有一段時間了，也許在網站上也有 ChatGPT，您能否談談該功能獲得了什麼樣的吸引力以及您希望從中獲得什麼將來？

Yes, sure, Mark. I would say -- well, so first of all, we were the first to launch it. We've been learning a lot as we've gone. We've talked at a few conferences about how we've learned to help customers engage with it. Sometimes they don't know what to ask. There's a lot of discovery going on in the world of generative AI around prompts and how to get people into the right questions, et cetera. So we're doing a bunch of work on that. We've recently, frankly, just highlighted it more, so people could find it.

是的，當然，馬克。我想說——好吧，首先，我們是第一個推出它的。我們一路走來學到了很多。我們在一些會議上討論了我們如何學習幫助客戶參與其中。有時他們不知道該問什麼。在生成人工智慧領域，圍繞著提示以及如何讓人們提出正確的問題等方面正在發生許多發現。所以我們正在這方面做大量工作。坦白說，我們最近更加強調了它，以便人們可以找到它。

We weren't necessarily certain it was a net conversion winner or not anything winner. We just knew customers were curious. We wanted to see if we could help them with planning, et cetera. So we've -- since we've highlighted it more, we've gotten much more engagement. But again, it's early days, and it's not really -- I wouldn't think of it as impacting the business materially other than keeping us on the forefront of technology for our customers and the customers who want to experience it and discover through it.

我們不一定確定它是淨轉換贏家還是什麼贏家。我們只知道客戶很好奇。我們想看看是否可以幫助他們進行規劃等。因此，自從我們更強調這一點以來，我們就獲得了更多的參與度。但再說一次，現在還處於早期階段，而且並不是真的——我不認為它會對業務產生實質性影響，除了讓我們為我們的客戶和想要體驗它並通過它發現的客戶保持技術的最前沿。

Now as I mentioned, we are using generative AI in many other ways besides just that, hey, I want to go to Paris, when is a good time to go to Paris question, but we're using it in our reviews to help customers sift through reviews and ask a simple question. We're using it in service. We're using it in a lot of places. So generative AI is a bigger story for us long term and for everybody. But I think in terms of that one feature on the home page, it's still pretty small. People like -- the people who like it really like it. I wouldn't say it's moving the business one way or the other, but it's a feature we want to have up there, and it's a feature we want to enhance. And ultimately, we want to use AI broadly and generative AI to take you more easily through the collective journey.

現在正如我所提到的，我們正在以許多其他方式使用生成式人工智慧，除此之外，嘿，我想去巴黎，什麼時候是去巴黎的好時機問題，但我們在評論中使用它來幫助顧客篩選評論並提出一個簡單的問題。我們正在服務中使用它。我們在很多地方都在使用它。因此，從長遠來看，生成式人工智慧對我們和每個人來說都是一個更大的故事。但我認為就主頁上的這項功能而言，它仍然很小。人們喜歡——喜歡它的人真的很喜歡它。我不會說這會以某種方式推動業務發展，但這是我們想要擁有的功能，也是我們想要增強的功能。最終，我們希望廣泛使用人工智慧和生成式人工智慧，讓您更輕鬆地完成集體旅程。

Whatever part of it you want to -- you can use it best for, whether that's home page, discovery, kind of greenfields trying to figure out a trip or anywhere through search, sort, purchase, comparison, all of those places that are complicated areas for customers, we want to help use AI, use generative AI where appropriate to just take friction out of that journey end-to-end. And that's a journey we're on, and homepage is just one part of it.

無論你想要它的哪一部分——你都可以最好地使用它，無論是主頁、發現、試圖找出旅行的綠地還是通過搜索、排序、購買、比較的任何地方，所有這些複雜的地方在在客戶領域，我們希望幫助使用人工智慧，在適當的情況下使用生成式人工智慧，以消除端到端旅程中的摩擦。這就是我們正在進行的旅程，主頁只是其中的一部分。

Our final question is from Ken Gawrelski from Wells Fargo.

我們的最後一個問題來自富國銀行的 Ken Gawrelski。

This is (inaudible) on for Ken. It seems like the business journey over the last couple of years has been focused on centralization, centralization of the tech platform, centralization of the loyalty program. How do you think about centralization of brands? Specifically, it feels like Orbitz, Hotwire, Travelocity, the legacy brands have been a drag (inaudible) growth over the last few years. Could it make sense to clean that up in '24?

這是肯（聽不清楚）的。過去幾年的商業歷程似乎一直集中在集中化、技術平台的集中化、忠誠度計畫的集中化。您如何看待品牌集中化？具體來說，感覺 Orbitz、Hotwire、Travelocity 這些傳統品牌在過去幾年中一直拖累（聽不清楚）成長。 24 年清理這個問題有意義嗎？

Yes, I would say, again, we are happy to have customers on any brands they enjoy. But if you look at how we've invested capital, we have not been really investing in those smaller brands for the last few years. There are still customers who enjoy those brands. We're not planning to turn them off or make them go somewhere else. We obviously think they'd be better off in our main brands with the best-in-class loyalty program and everything else. But at this point, and really, to your point, as we've centralized the technology, the lift of maintaining those things has gone away. So as we get rid of having multiple stacks and old stacks to keep up and other things like that, we get to an efficient state where one or 21 doesn't really matter.

是的，我要再說一遍，我們很高興擁有他們喜歡的任何品牌的客戶。但如果你看看我們如何投資資本，就會發現過去幾年我們並沒有真正投資在那些較小的品牌。仍然有顧客喜歡這些品牌。我們不打算關閉它們或讓它們去其他地方。顯然，我們認為他們在我們的主要品牌中擁有一流的忠誠度計劃和其他一切會更好。但在這一點上，實際上，就你的觀點而言，隨著我們集中了技術，維護這些東西的提升已經消失了。因此，當我們擺脫多個堆疊和舊堆疊以及其他類似的事情時，我們就進入了一個高效的狀態，其中 1 或 21 並不重要。

Now it's a matter of brand marketing, it's a matter of consumer experience, we are focused on the big 3, and we will keep doing that. And in different parts of the world, that may look slightly different. We may have fewer than 3. We may have one or 2 that's under a different name. But in general, we are going to be focused on a small group of brands where most of the -- where all the spending goes and then to the extent we have these other brands, we don't want to run customers off. As you say, that's been a drag. It's increasingly small drag, if I can say that, like it's getting smaller and so the drag is getting smaller, which is helping us, honestly, as we start to accelerate the bigger pieces and they outrun the drags. But we're also not trying to accelerate their drag on us, and we will maintain those as long as customers like using them, but you should expect those to continue to shrink and for virtually all our energy (inaudible) spending energy to go into the core brands.

現在是品牌行銷的問題，這是消費者體驗的問題，我們專注於三大，我們將繼續這樣做。在世界不同地區，情況可能略有不同。我們可能少於 3 個。我們可能有 1 個或 2 個使用不同的名稱。但總的來說，我們將專注於一小部分品牌，其中大部分——所有支出都花在這些品牌上，然後在我們擁有這些其他品牌的範圍內，我們不想流失客戶。正如你所說，這是一個拖累。如果我可以這麼說的話，它的阻力越來越小，就像它越來越小一樣，阻力也越來越小，老實說，這對我們有幫助，因為我們開始加速更大的碎片，它們超過了阻力。但我們也不想加速它們對我們的拖累，只要客戶喜歡使用它們，我們就會維持它們，但你應該預期它們會繼續縮小，並且我們幾乎所有的精力（聽不清楚）都花在了投入上。核心品牌。

I think that's it. So thank you, operator. That was the last question. Thank you all for joining us today. We look forward to talking to you after the end of the year. Take care.

我想就是這樣。謝謝你，接線生。這是最後一個問題。感謝大家今天加入我們。我們期待在年底後與您交談。小心。

That concludes today's call. Thank you for joining, everyone. You may now disconnect your lines. Have a nice day.

今天的電話會議到此結束。謝謝大家的加入。現在您可以斷開線路。祝你今天過得愉快。