Brett Keller, CEO of Priceline, joined TheStreet to give his take on why travel is holding up so well.
Transcript:
CONWAY GITTENS: Are you seeing any changes in consumer travel behavior because of inflation?
BRETT KELLER: Well, inflation’s been with us now for a few years. And what we’re seeing is that travel in particular is holding up quite well compared to other categories. Consumers continue to preference travel over hard goods and even staples to some extent, because people love to travel, they want to get out. And it’s a way for them to relax, take a vacation and enjoy themselves. What we’re seeing, obviously, is on the hotel side, you know, prices really shot up the last couple of years. And for the first time, really, we’re starting to see hotel prices level out and even start to come down a little bit. So inflation has taken a hard toll in the hotel industry. But now that I think is starting to ease a little bit. So the question will be what happens as we move through the rest of the summer and into the rest of the year. Will prices start to surge again in those areas.
CONWAY GITTENS: Speaking of hard tolls, Brett, air travel has been a mess for the last couple of years. You know, the industry has been contending with staffing shortages and widespread delays and cancellations. Are these travel disruptions getting to the point where they are weighing on travelers choices for the summer?
BRETT KELLER: Based on the demand trends, I would say no, they’re not stopping them from boarding airplanes and flying, which is really where most of the disruption takes place. Again, air traffic is up 6% or 7% year over year. And as we move into the holidays and peak periods, it will be higher. What’s happening, though, is there is better staffing taking place, right. TSA is better staffed. The airlines have put more equipment into the air. And it’s enabled them to deal with some of the backlog that happens when you get a bad weather incident or you have an equipment malfunction. So the airlines from an operational perspective, are improving. If you compare this to two years ago when it was really a very tough summer for consumers, I think we’re going to be in a much better place this year as we were last year. So there’s fewer cancellations and fewer delays, but more flights in the air. So it will feel more crowded as you’re moving through the airports.
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