Did Booking.com Have Days of Negative Revenue?

Glenn Fogel says Booking.com had days of negative revenue during the pandemic. Negative revenue means the company was refunding more than it actually had coming in. The pandemic was not good for the travel business. The harm was terrible for everybody impacted, and the company result was days when refunds ran ahead of money coming in.

Booking.com was the biggest player in Russia by far. When Russia invaded Ukraine, the company immediately pulled out of its business there. The exit hit results by a mid-single-digit amount. The business there was high-margin, and then it was gone, the loss summed up in one word: poof.

The invasion exit and the pandemic were separate blows to the same travel company. One removed a high-margin market at once. The other left days when refunds were larger than new money coming in.