Booking Holdings spends nearly $9 billion a year to reach travelers. Its CFO explains how AI is changing trip planning

Good morning. The biggest impact of AI on travel may happen before the traveler ever checks into a hotel or boards a plane.

At the Fortune AIQ Summit on Oct. 1, I interviewed Ewout Steenbergen, EVP and CFO of Booking Holdings (No. 169 on the Fortune 500), which owns and operates several major online travel brands, including Booking.com, Priceline, Agoda, KAYAK, OpenTable, and Rentalcars.com.

Steenbergen described a future in which AI makes travel planning more seamless, personalized, and proactive. That could mean suggesting an indoor visit to the Louvre when rain threatens a Paris itinerary, automatically moving a restaurant reservation after a delayed flight, or recommending an activity based on a traveler’s preferences and open time.

The prize is not simply a better chatbot. It is what Booking calls a “connected trip”: an integrated experience that ties together flights, hotels, restaurants, rental cars, and activities. And, in doing so, potentially creates more loyalty, trust, and frequency of engagement.

From AI pilots to unit economics

For finance leaders, Steenbergen’s comments offered a practical framework for judging AI investments. His message: Move past isolated pilots, but keep a close eye on unit economics.

Booking spends roughly $8 billion to $9 billion annually on paid customer-acquisition channels, including search, social, and metasearch platforms, Steenbergen said. About one-third of its consumer traffic comes through paid channels, while the other two-thirds comes directly to its platforms. As consumers turn to more AI tools and agents for discovery, he sees greater channel diversification as potentially positive for Booking’s unit economics.

Early signals are encouraging. Customers using Booking’s AI tools are booking somewhat faster, converting at somewhat higher rates, and canceling less often, Steenbergen said, while cautioning that the data remains early stage.

I asked him how he’s measuring the financial return on investment when it........

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