Against this trend, it looks like Booking Holdings dodged the proverbial SEO bullet in Q3, registering a 4% YoY gross bookings, a 10% net income, and an 11% room nights increases. CEO Glenn Fogel stated that the group “saw some headwinds in the SEO channel that did create some modest pressure, but,” he added, “it’s a small channel for us.” Booking Holdings’ strategy focused heavily on brand strength and retaining customers, as the #beabooker campaign shows: https://www.youtube.com/embed/agz1YdMD4Qc
“What we know is most important is for us to get customers to come to us directly,” Fogel said, in order to be less “ dependent on other sources of traffic.”