Back to top

Image: Bigstock

Here's How Much a $1000 Investment in Booking Holdings Made 10 Years Ago Would Be Worth Today

Read MoreHide Full Article

How much a stock's price changes over time is a significant driver for most investors. Not only can price performance impact your portfolio, but it can help you compare investment results across sectors and industries as well.

The fear of missing out, or FOMO, also plays a factor in investing, especially with particular tech giants, as well as popular consumer-facing stocks.

What if you'd invested in Booking Holdings (BKNG - Free Report) ten years ago? It may not have been easy to hold on to BKNG for all that time, but if you did, how much would your investment be worth today?

Booking Holdings' Business In-Depth

With that in mind, let's take a look at Booking Holdings' main business drivers.

Norwalk, CT-based Booking Holdings Inc. is one of the largest online travel companies in the world. The company’s travel-related offerings cover hotel rooms, airline tickets, rental cars, vacation packages, cruises, “things to do” at customer destinations and travel insurance.

It has agreements with hotels, airline companies, cruise ships, transport companies and vacation providers, which enable it to accept bookings on their behalf. Information on these offerings and customer reviews are available on the company’s owned or operated websites, thus helping customers make informed decisions.

Services in the United States are provided through the Booking Holdings.com website. The company employs two marketing strategies in the country, “price-disclosed” and “name your own price” or “opaque”.

International results are comprised of revenues from rentalcars.com, Agoda and Kayak. While rentalcars.com allows it to take rental car reservations, Kayak enables comparative shopping of Booking Holdings inventories. Agoda, on the other hand, caters primarily to consumers in the Asian-Pacific region, offering flight, ground transportation, and activity reservation services. The acquisition of OpenTable, which has allowed it to expand into the restaurant reservations space, also contributes to the international revenues.

Booking Holdings reported revenues of $17.09 billion in 2022. Agency revenues accounted for 52.7% of revenues. Merchant revenues contributed 42.1% of revenues. It also generated 5.2% of 2022 revenues through advertisements on its websites, classified as the Advertising & Other category.

The agency model is more lucrative for the company. It generates revenues from travel-related transactions, which include travel reservation commissions, GDS reservation booking fees and certain travel insurance fees.

Merchant model revenues are also derived from travel-related transactions, which include ancillary fees, credit card processing rebates, and customer processing fees, along with the ones included in the agency model.

Bottom Line

Anyone can invest, but building a successful investment portfolio takes a combination of a few things: research, patience, and a little bit of risk. So, if you had invested in Booking Holdings a decade ago, you're probably feeling pretty good about your investment today.

According to our calculations, a $1000 investment made in February 2014 would be worth $3,102.69, or a 210.27% gain, as of February 8, 2024. Investors should keep in mind that this return excludes dividends but includes price appreciation.

Compare this to the S&P 500's rally of 177.96% and gold's return of 54.29% over the same time frame.

Going forward, analysts are expecting more upside for BKNG.

Booking Holdings is benefiting from substantial improvement in its booking trends. Growing demand for travel and solid momentum in booked room nights are driving growth in the gross bookings. Further, strong global leisure travel demand is a plus. Furthermore, solid momentum across merchant, advertising and other businesses is a major positive. Additionally, strong growth in rental car and airline ticket units is acting as a tailwind. For 2023, the company expects more than 20% year-over-year growth in gross bookings. Additionally, strengthening alternative accommodation business and flight capabilities are a positive. Notably, the stock has outperformed the industry it belongs to over a year. However, weakness in agency bookings is a headwind. Further, intensifying competition remains a major concern.

The stock is up 5.33% over the past four weeks, and no earnings estimate has gone lower in the past two months, compared to 3 higher, for fiscal 2023. The consensus estimate has moved up as well.

See More Zacks Research for These Tickers


Normally $25 each - click below to receive one report FREE:


Booking Holdings Inc. (BKNG) - free report >>

Published in