It was April 2020<\/strong>, and I remembered Booking Holdings from its earlier days as Priceline Group<\/strong>\u2014a name familiar to me not only as an investor, but as a frequent international traveler. I had used their platforms\u2014Booking.com<\/strong>, Agoda<\/strong>, Priceline<\/strong>, and KAYAK<\/strong>\u2014on trips over the years. The brands were trusted, easy to use, and increasingly indispensable to the modern travel experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And so, I began to dig deeper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Travel, at that moment, was one of the most dislocated and emotionally charged sectors<\/strong> of the economy. The headlines were grim. The public sentiment was fear. And yet, through a long-term lens, this looked like the kind of moment that Howard Marks writes about: \u201cYou don\u2019t buy good things at any price\u2014you buy good things well.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I believed that the pandemic would have a 2\u20133 year impact<\/strong>, not a permanent one. Travel may pause, but it wouldn\u2019t disappear. Human connection, global business, and cultural curiosity don\u2019t vanish\u2014they rebound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, on April 8th, 2020<\/strong>\u2014a date that turned out to be the bottom of the market for many travel stocks\u2014I made an initial investment in Booking Holdings. Total fluke? Perhaps. But the underlying conviction wasn\u2019t: I believed that Booking\u2019s scale, brand portfolio, and network effects would make it one of the first and strongest to rebound<\/strong> once global movement resumed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over time, I continued to dollar-cost average<\/strong> into the position. I\u2019ve now deployed approximately 3% of my total capital<\/strong> into Booking Holdings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The results speak for themselves:<\/p>\n\n\n\n And perhaps most important: I still believe the best is ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Booking Holdings is not just a travel agency\u2014it\u2019s an infrastructure layer for global travel commerce<\/strong>. Their brands are category leaders:<\/p>\n\n\n\n What ties this all together is platform leverage and customer loyalty<\/strong>. When a traveler books flights, rooms, cars, and even dinner reservations through one ecosystem, that data advantage and margin capture becomes compounding<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Booking Holdings\u2019 moat is built on:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Their continued investment in AI-driven personalization, mobile UX, and supply optimization<\/strong> also gives them staying power in a rapidly digitizing sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As at the 19th May 2025, latest earnings call, Bookings reported a ~$25bn annual revenue (quarterly revenue growth of 7.8% yoy), which indicates a approx 5% of total market share. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Booking sits in my G1 Fund \u2013 Core Compounders<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It represents long-term secular tailwinds<\/strong>, global diversification, and the return of discretionary consumer spend. It\u2019s not just a recovery play anymore\u2014it\u2019s now proving itself to be a compounding platform business<\/strong> in its own right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Looking ahead, I\u2019m watching:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The risks I monitor include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, even in that context, Booking Holdings has consistently adapted, acquired, and led<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Booking Holdings is the kind of business that looks boring on the surface\u2014but beneath it lies a beautifully complex, deeply optimized global engine for travel commerce<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If my children ever ask me why I invested in a travel company at the peak of a pandemic, I\u2019ll tell them: \u201cBecause I believed in the return of wonder. And when the world started moving again, I wanted to be invested in the rails that helped people go.\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n also<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The Market is often irrational, drive either by Extreme Fear or Extreme Greed, learn to look for these signs<\/em>” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 1. How I Discovered Booking Holdings I first heard about Booking Holdings during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, on a podcast that was unpacking the carnage unfolding in the travel and hospitality sector. Airlines were grounded, hotels were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investing","clearfix"],"yoast_head":"\n2. The Spark: When Disruption Meets Durability<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
3. My Investment Entry<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
4. The Outcome So Far<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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5. Why Booking Holdings? The Business Behind the Brand<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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6. What Makes Them Durable<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/murrayslatter.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/output.png?resize=640%2C318&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nLatest Earnings<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
7. Role in My Portfolio<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
8. What I\u2019m Watching<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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9. What Would Break My Thesis<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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\n\n\n\nFinal Reflection<\/h3>\n\n\n\n