Expedia Group, Inc.

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Expedia Group Q1 2026 Financial Results Teleconference. My name is Jen, and I will be the operator for today. today's call. If you wish to ask a question at the end of the presentation, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind, please press star followed by one again to cancel your request. For opening remarks, I will now turn the call over to VP Investor Relations, Rob Bevegni. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, and welcome to Expedia Group's first quarter 2026 earnings call. I'm pleased to be joined on today's call by our CEO, Ariane Gorin, and our CFO, Scott Schenkel. As a reminder, our commentary today will include references to certain non-GAAP measures. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures are included in our earnings release. Unless otherwise stated, all growth rates are on a year-over-year basis, and any reference to expenses excludes stock-based compensation. We will also be making forward-looking statements during the call, which are predictions, projections, and other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions, which are subject to risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. Actual results can materially differ due to factors discussed during this call and in our most recent forms 10Q, 10K, and other filings with the SEC. Except as required by law, we do not undertake any responsibility to update these forward-looking statements. This call is being webcast on the investor relations section of our website at ir.expediagroup.com. A replay will be archived on our site. A slide deck containing financial highlights has also been posted on our IR website. For today's call, Ariane will begin with a review of our first quarter results. Then Scott will provide additional details on our first quarter financial performance and guidance. After our prepared remarks, we will turn the call over to our operator to begin the Q&A portion of the call. And with that, let me turn the call over to Ariane.

Thanks, Rob, and thank you all for joining us today. I'll begin my remarks with our first quarter performance, and then I'll talk about AI. as we see it as a significant growth opportunity, and I know it's top of mind for many investors. We had a strong first quarter, underpinned by solid execution, as well as progress on our strategic priorities and operational leverage that we've been building over many quarters. Our financial results exceeded both our top and bottom line expectations, demonstrating the resilience of our strategy even amid a mixed macro environment. We grew bookings 13%, revenue 15%, and expanded EBITDA margin by nearly six points. Momentum from late 2025 carried through February, delivering our best first quarter start in three years. In March, we hit a more challenging macro environment with the conflict in the Middle East and travel advisories in Mexico. When travelers needed us most, we took care of them, working with our partners in region to extend cancellation flexibility and augmenting our service teams. While the Middle East itself represents less than 2% of our total bookings, we saw elevated traveler cancellations across Europe and Asia. Cancellation rates stabilized in early April and booking activity re-accelerated throughout the month. Total booked room nights in the first quarter were up 6%, including mid-single digits in the U.S., low single digits in EMEA, and low double digits in the rest of the world. Our domestic U.S. room night growth remained stable, but it was partially offset by travel advisories in Mexico and less promotional activity by select B2B partners. B2B once again delivered healthy performance with bookings up 22%. We announced an exclusive partnership with Bank of Montreal Air Miles and just last week became the exclusive hotel partner for Uber. Uber will also be in our Expedia app, making travelers' trips more seamless. Our consumer brands grew bookings by 10%, the fastest pace in 12 quarters. Active loyalty members were at mid-single digits, and we continue to see even faster growth in our higher tiers. For the first time, vacation rentals on Expedia reached an annualized run rate of a billion dollars, demonstrating that our investment in a unified lodging shopping experience is scaling successfully. And we also continue to expand our supplier-funded promotions. Twenty-five percent more hotels participated in our March sale this year, and more than a third of Vrbo Booking's last quarter came from supplier-funded promotions. Our strong performance was a direct result of the progress we've made on our three strategic priorities, delivering more value to travelers, investing where we see the greatest opportunities for growth, and driving operating efficiencies and margin expansion. On our third priority in particular, we achieved our highest first quarter margin in 15 years. We're pleased with our progress and remain committed to additional cost efficiencies and marketing productivity in our consumer business. Now turning to AI. Simply put, AI reinforces our core advantages and amplifies our execution against our priorities. We're using it to enhance the experience for our partners and the travelers that come to us direct and to acquire new traffic and market more effectively. Let me ground this in some concrete examples, starting with how we're improving traveler experience through our products, supply, and servicing. First, AI enables better personalization at scale in our products. We're using data from hundreds of millions of travelers' interactions, from shopping to reviews, servicing and more, to continuously improve our ranking and recommendation models. AI-powered conversational experiences provide even richer data and coupled with more advanced models, enable us to uncover deeper patterns. In the first quarter, this translated into higher conversion at Vrbo and record attach rates on Expedia. Our two most widely adopted features are our servicing agent and AI-powered filters, and travelers who use AI filters return more often and convert at higher rates. Second, AI is a great tool to strengthen our supply advantage, given the massive scale we operate at. We work with nearly 3.7 million properties of which 800,000 are exclusive to us. AI enables us to onboard partners faster. And last quarter we grew lodging property count by 10% with our fastest growth outside the US. It also allows us to improve our supply quality, enriching our proprietary content, which ultimately underpins travelers' trust in our brand. And just as importantly, as AI deepens our understanding of travelers, we're bringing even greater value to our partners through more powerful insights, advertising, and promotional tools. Third, AI improves our post-booking experience. We handle more than 250 million service interactions a year, with over half resolved through self-service. More than 30% of those are powered by AI, and that number keeps increasing. And when human support is required, AI shortens wait and handling time and enables faster resolution. We're automating conversation summaries in over 30 languages, enabling seamless handoffs with context across our global workforce and reducing new agent onboarding time by about 60%. As flights were canceled across the Middle East, AI helped us handle surging volumes at speed, allowing our human agents to focus on more complex, time-sensitive issues. This hybrid servicing platform combines intelligent automation, strong partnerships, and human support to deepen travelers' trust so they know we always have their back. AI also strengthens our ability to acquire traffic and market more effectively. While roughly two-thirds of our bookings come through direct channels, AI platforms are an opportunity to grow through indirect channels. We moved early here, leveraging our technical strengths built up over many years. Answer Engine Optimization is now our fastest-growing channel, and in February, we went live with ChatGPT ads. Traffic and bookings from AI-driven channels remain small, but we're encouraged by the mix of new users, conversion, and average purchase size. This is a long-term opportunity to reach a large, engaged audience while diversifying our marketing investments. More broadly, AI is improving our creative and supercharging our testing abilities. Overall, AI-enabled tools are driving hundreds of millions of dollars in realized marketing value through greater productivity and workflow automation. Stepping back, I want to be clear that if we're moving to take advantage of opportunities, we're also working deliberately to ensure our strategy is resilient no matter how traveler behaviors evolve. We know that trust, scale, supply quality, and deep relationships will remain essential, and that's where we excel. In closing, we had a strong start to the year, delivering better than expected results against a mixed macro backdrop. Our team's solid execution drove double-digit bookings and revenue growth and meaningful margin expansion. As we look ahead, we'll continue advancing our strategic priorities, thoughtfully deploying AI, and driving value for all our stakeholders. Before turning it over to Scott, I want to take a moment to thank him for the significant contributions he's made during an important period for the company. Our strong financial foundation reflects the great work he and the team have done over the last year and a half. And looking ahead, I'm pleased to welcome Derek Anderson as our next CFO. With that, I'll turn it over to Scott to walk you through the financials.