Ariane Gorin

Everybody is amazed that demand is holding up as well as it is.

And we look at indicators, we look at consumer confidence, we look at fuel prices, we look at air ticket prices.

You know, despite those, the demand is there.

We're open to all ideas.

Look, we are still seeing really healthy demand for summer travel plans.

We just reported our first quarter earnings and had the strongest first quarter start that we've had in years.

Now, obviously, the events that happened in the Middle East in March 2020

did have an impact.

It had a wave of cancellations, especially in Europe and Asia.

We also saw travel advisories into Mexico that dampened demand somewhat in March.

But, you know, the cancellations have dissipated in April and we're seeing demand pick up again.

So people definitely want to get out there and travel for the summer.

You know, there were a lot of cancellations just because flights were canceled.

The Middle East actually was almost 10% of global air traffic.

And so when the conflict broke out, there were a lot of cancellations.

And when that happens, our focus is taking care of travelers, taking care of travelers who are in trip.

and taking care of travelers who had planned trips.

So we work with our hotel partners, our airline partners, to extend flexibility, and then also just to make sure that we can pick up the phone and answer questions for travelers.

So we spend a lot on AI to automate and have self-service, but at times like that, people want to talk to a real human being, and that's what we do at Expedia Group.

We are looking, you can imagine, in detail at the numbers to see are we seeing a shift in consumer behavior from fly-to to drive-to.