When you think about the current quarter here, what was it that really guided you to beat? Before we talk about the forward look. But we're very happy. And thanks for having me. We were very happy with the second quarter results coming in above expectations on most of the major metrics. The one metric where we came in line with what we told the Street last quarter, we gave a projection that we pretty much hit the middle of it, was because that airline tickets were less than we thought they'd be. Air tickets, especially in the U.S., have dropped a bit. But for us, that's not a big deal because we don't make money based on the price of the tickets. So it really didn't affect any of the other metrics. It didn't affect revenue, doesn't affect it, tied it. And we came in with very good EBIT numbers, well above expectations. But sometimes the street, you know, takes a look at that, but much more so. Looks forward looks what we said about

the third quarter. And they obviously said, no, I'm not so sure about the future. I, of course, don't worry too much about the short run. I worry more about the long run. Long run. It's still well intact. Well, let's talk about the medium run. You looked at the employment numbers this morning. You have a whole market that is pretty spooked by the slowdown that we're seeing. It all came in below expectations. And the real worry here is if you have wage growth moderating, if you have inflation, moderating is a good thing, but you still have that pressure of higher interest rates for now, that could be an overhang here of anyone looking to perhaps buy a trip on a credit card. When you look at the employment numbers as a CEO here in an industry where, you know, people are looking to spend that extra dollar, do you worry that things are slowing down?

Well, there are a couple of things to think about on that, especially about our company. We're extremely global. So it's interesting, people, when you have a discussion about unemployment, we're talking in the U.S., we're not talking global. And yet for our business, it's very global. So, yes, the U.S. is a big market, but it's nowhere near what our full global business is. So it's one small part. And yes, people are talking about sort of a two-speed economy in the U.S. where people who are having a little harder time at the lower part of the economic spectrum. That's true. When, again, for travel, a lot of those people were traveling to begin with. Unfortunately, they weren't able to travel. So the fact that they still can't travel, not as big a deal. What we talked about in our call was that we had not seen in terms of

globally any real reduction in star rating, nor have we seen a reduction globally in terms of length of stay. Those are two metrics we look at in terms of the canary in the coal mine. See, there's a pullback in travel. So overall we did mention a little bit moderate, moderate, mild moderation in Europe, but again, not a big deal. But I think people, they jump on any sort of news, short term traders jumping on it, moving quickly for me, long term is what matters.

Booking CEO Discusses Outlook, Earnings

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