Darren Huston Wants To Stay Humble With More Heart

Darren Huston runs the world’s biggest travel company which shows no signs of stopping and which has been gobbling up almost everything in its path.

According to its latest financial results, announced Nov 4, third quarter gross travel bookings reached $13.8 billion, an increase of 28% over a year ago. Gross profit was $2.6 billion, 32% up on the prior year. And evidence that its international expansion is working – its international operations contributed gross profit of $2.3 billion, a 33% increase versus a year ago.

But during his session at Phocuswright in Los Angeles last month, one almost did. One, he spoke about the problems of size. Two, when asked about how he was managing Steve Hafner and the Kayak acquisition made two years ago, he said, “You don’t manage Steve.” And three, a fire alarm went off in the middle of his interview which left him, and everyone else, wondering what to do. Should we run or should we stay?

But you don’t get to where Darren Huston is by not staying cool and calm under fire, even if it was only a drill. The former Starbucks and Microsoft executive was all heart when he spoke about the challenges of size.

Read Full Article @ https://www.webintravel.com/alarm-bells-huston-wants-stay-humble-heart/

Priceline Group Made Changes To Attract More Business Travellers

The Priceline Group, says in its full year earnings report today it is “feeling positive” about the changes it has made in recent months to attract more business travellers.

Darren Huston President and CEO of Priceline , says there is no negative impact on the company’s financial performance as a result of allowing bookings to take place on TripAdvisor, rather than on the mothership.

 

Bookings via TripAdvisor as a percentage of the overall pie are in the “low single-digits”, Huston says.

CEO Darren Huston : See tremendous growth ahead

Nevertheless, Darren Huston adds that the branding that Priceline Group-run companies get on TripAdvisor is “great”, and that in the US this may have helped raise the profile of Booking.com, where traditionally Priceline has been the better known brand.

Darren Huston Serving As Executive Chairman

Slickspaces brings automation & technology to both guests and hosts at vacation rental properties through things like smart locks and voice-led tools.

CEO Darren Huston serving as executive chairman, a new funding round and integration with online travel agencies and the likes of Airbnb, Slickspaces can look at the market at a global scale.

Darren Huston, The Leader In Travel Service Market

President and CEO Darren Huston, one of the world’s leading group of online travel brands, The Priceline Group.

After making ripples in the travel services sector with the acquisition of Buuteeq, a digital marketing platform for hotels worldwide, Huston went a step further sealing the deal to also add OpenTable to the group’s list of subsidiaries in a deal worth $2.6 billion last month.

Darren Huston has been a leader in the travel services market since joining The Priceline Group in 2011. Previously he spent 7+ years at Microsoft in various positions, namely President and CEO of the companies operations in Japan.

He has also been Senior Vice President at Starbucks where he headed up their product development in the late 1990s. A lot of experience to share when he comes to Dublin in November.

Darren Huston Interview on Acquiring Homeaway with Skift

Priceline Group CEO says his company didn’t get involved when HomeAway put itself up for sale because “we’re quite picky” and HomeAway’s model of allowing vacation rental owners to wait 24 hours before confirming a booking and charging travelers a booking fee “just didn’t fit us.”

Expedia Inc. announced that it would acquire HomeAway for $3.9 billion in cash and stock. Asked whether the Priceline Group got involved in that sales process, Darren Huston said: “No. Although we’ve talked to them for years. We were very much aware of it. We knew kind of how it was going. We did a little bit of thinking and said this isn’t the right thing for us. We’re quite picky.”

Darren Huston responded to a bank analyst's question

Priceline Group had a better-than-expected 2014, with gross travel bookings of $50.3 billion, up from almost $40 billion a year ago. Gross profit for the year was $7.6 billion, up by a third from the prior year.

In the fourth quarter of 2014, Priceline had 24% growth in hotel rooms units booked. Most of its revenue came from Booking-com.

Not worried about Expedia

On an earnings call, CEO Darren Huston responded to a bank analyst’s question by saying he wasn’t worried about Expedia’s recent acquisitions of online travel agencies Wotif, Travelocity, and Orbitz.

“Our focus is on organic growth and acquisition. We’re focusing on premium, winning brands that add new business competencies or geographies. It’s all been adjacent growth rather than tripling down on similar brands, like others are doing. I don’t see the Orbitz deal, if it passes, as being a negative to Priceline. The global travel market was maybe $1.3 trillion, and if you add Expedia and Priceline’s businesses all together, they amount to less than 10% of that. 

There’s tremendous potential for us…. Expedia’s average room night rate increase was higher in recent quarters than ours. I give them credit for a great quarter, but we have a different philosophy when it comes to building inventory…. We pride ourselves on our growth rate. Our room night growth is 100% organic, unlike what you’re seeing with Expedia.”

The company’s market capitalization is above $50 billion, roughly four times that of rival Expedia Inc.

Rental properties

Last year, Booking-com inventory rose to more than 600,000 listings, up 41% year-over-year. Much of that was due to a doubling of vacation rental properties, to about 270,000 properties.

That meant that it had more than one million holiday rooms available and instantly confirmable on its platform on any given day. It also meant that vacation rentals are becoming a greater proportion of Booking.com’s overall inventory.

Darren Huston said the homeowner property category was of interest to the company, but it poses challenges because the product is different from hotels.

“Our next move as a company is to address homeowner-managed rather than professionally-managed vacation rentals….There is a lot of interest among our consumers in self-catered products…. We’ve taken steps here. We’ve adjusted our business system. We’ve rolled out a simple extra net. We have a lot of things in our pipeline to address the needs for a single-owner model. Delivering single-owner vacation rentals is ultimately where our destination as a company.”

Read Here :  https://www.phocuswire.com/Priceline-reported-a-solid-2014-on-the-strength-of-mobile-Asia

Priceline- Dominant Online Player Based on its Search Engine Marketing Strategy

The Priceline Group likes to keep its CEOs hungry with below-market base salaries and lucrative potential bonuses should they and the company over-achieve.

CEO Darren Huston cashed in on the opportunity, receiving nearly $17.9 million in total compensation just prior to taking on the top role.

Huston’s 2013 base salary of $478,487 as CEO of the Priceline Group’s Booking.com unit, he received a stock award of around $12 million, a bonus of $5.25 million, and other compensation amounting to a teensy $150,000 or so.

That brought Huston’s total compensation to $17,878,468, to be precise, which he received in euros as he was based in the Netherlands.

Huston’s 2013 bonus was based on his being the CEO of Booking.com and its “excellent” performance, a Priceline financial filing states, as well as the additional duties he took on last year to be responsible for the Group’s inter-brand relations.

You might think of Huston’s role last year in coordinating relations between and technology-sharing among Booking.com, Priceline.com, Kayak, Agoda, and rentalcars.com in 2013 as sort of a CEO internship and a prelude to his taking the top spot in 2014, replacing Jeffery Boyd as CEO of the Priceline Group.

Read Here : https://skift.com/2014/04/24/priceline-ceo-huston-earned-17-9-million-in-2013-a-very-good-year-for-the-company/

Priceline Extending Its Reach To Restaurant Reservations

Extending its reach into restaurant reservations, online travel giant Priceline Group bought OpenTable for $2.6 billion.

Priceline paid $103 per share in cash, which is a 46% premium over OpenTable’s closing price of $70.43.

OpenTable charges restaurants monthly fees to seat diners who book their reservations online. It has an inventory of more than 31,000 restaurants, and seats more than 15 million diners a month.

“Travelers are diners,” Priceline CEO and President Darren Huston said in a conference call with analysts and reporters. “It’s the same customers. There’s opportunity to cross-promote brands.

“We spent a long time looking at OpenTable. It’s been on our radar for a long time. We felt now was a good time,” he said.

Read Full Article : https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/06/13/priceline-buys-opentable/10413393/

Blackpines Global Advisors CEO on Weebly

Founder and CEO Darren Huston of Blackpines Global Advisors B.V. incorporated in May 2016 in The Hague. BlackPines’ main aim is to help both owners and leaders of private and public companies to improve the outcomes of their investments.

Since July 2016, Mr. Darren Huston has been working as an Executive Advisor to Hillhouse Capital, Asia’s largest investment firm. In January 2017, his work with Hillhouse Capital became non-exclusive and he took on two leadership roles.

The first as Chairman of Magento, the world’s largest eCommerce software platform, and the second as Executive Chairman for Allegro, Poland’s largest eCommerce site.

What Darren Huston Finds at The Phocuswright Conference

Hear why Darren Huston finds The Phocuswright Conference so special. Darren Huston is President & CEO, The Priceline Group and CEO, Booking.com.

Top highest-paid CEOs of Canada

Valeant Pharmaceuticals International tops the ranking of Canadian CEO salaries for a second time this year — and that’s after a $100 million pay cut.

Michael J. Pearson, Valeant’s CEO, smashed the record for the top spot last year with $183 million in total compensation; this year Valeant’s new CEO, Joseph Papa, held on to the number-one ranking with $83 million.

 

Despite that 55% pay cut, Papa still easily bested the second-highest paid CEO on the list, Magna International’s Donald Walker, at $28 million.

This ranking is compiled each year by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, using publicly available data. (Companies take varying amounts of time to disclose executive compensation, which is why this ranking covers the year 2016.)

The left-leaning think tank uses the figures to highlight the gap between what the average Canadian makes compared to C-suite executives. This year’s average CEO salary among the top 100 highest-paid executives topped $10.4 million, which is 209 times the annual wage of an average Canadian.

Source : https://www.canadianbusiness.com/lists-and-rankings/richest-people/canada-100-highest-paid-ceos/

China Travels Next Big Market

Darren Huston discusses the quarterly earnings and partnership of company with Ctrip. Darren said that Ctrip will help them bring Chinese customers to their business around the world.

Priceline Darren Huston provides Insights on Third Quarter Profits

Priceline CEO & President shared his insight to strong third quarter profits.  

Darren Huston said that, “We are always fighting the law of large numbers, but the fundamental business is very strong,”

The Future Of Travel

Those who wants to know about the shape of the travel industry of the future, should look to the finalists of the Radical Innovation competition, which is gearing up to announce its winner next month on 16 October 2019. 

 
The yearly competition challenges designers, hoteliers, and students to pioneer compelling ideas in travel. 

The idea behind the award is to challenge the hotel industry to elevate the guest experience by calling for new ideas in design and operations. Since its founding, it has handed over $150,000 to progressive architectural and hospitality-minded thinkers.

This year, the 13th of the competition, the three finalists were selected from over 50 entries, submitted from 20 different countries. 

Fighting it out are Infinite Explorer by SB Architects, San Francisco, Volumetric High-Rise Modular Hotel by Danny Forster & Architecture, New York, Connectic by Cooper Carry, New York.

Read Full Article : https://www.forbes.com/sites/angelinavillaclarke/2019/09/15/the-future-of-travel-hotel-game-changers/#2d4b65d7603c

Darren Huston Visit To UWC Adriatic, Canada

Darren Huston Share his UWC experience and gave a memorable lecture to the College students and came up with an idea for a Booking.com Scholarship at his old College.

While he was CEO of Booking.com alumnus Darren Huston (UWCAD 83–85) visited the College and held a lecture.

Darren Huston was talking about his life and career he was struck by the fact that his audience comprised so many young travelers from around the world and that all UWC alumni travel too — actually, as UWCers they tend to do so quite extensively!

So — he thought — how about creating a way for the Alumni to give to the College simply by using Booking.com.

Company Plans For International Growth - Darren Huston

Darren Huston, President and CEO focuses on the organic growth discusses the global business of Priceline on CNBC & the plans for international growth of the company.

Darren Huston Outlook on Travel

Priceline Group CEO Darren Huston remains bullish online travel.

Darren Huston, The Priceline Group CEO, discusses the company’s euro bond offering, and Rocketmiles deal.

Darren Huston CEO discusses his differentiated product to Airbnb

Darren Huston Priceline CEO Hope to show America our fantastic product. Darren Huston CEO discusses his differentiated product to Airbnb.

Darren Huston : Priceline is in Competition

After beating earnings expectations, Darren Huston discusses how macro factors like oil and terrorism impact the travel environment.

Darren Huston : Hope to show America our fantastic product

Priceline stock is lower on downbeat guidance for the current quarter. CEO Darren Huston discusses his differentiated product to Airbnb.