“Turning to sales not expenses; we expect these to be up 50 basis points higher than in 2021 as a percentage of gross bookings.”

In context

“emain disciplined in our performance marketing ROIs and we'll continue to invest in developing the medium intent social media channels and you'll see us active in branding in the U.S. and other major markets. Our goal continues to be to use our marketing strength to gain share in markets where we can with reasonable returns. We expect to run initiatives and programs during the year to attract both existing and new customers to our platforms. It's difficult to know exactly how these factors will play out across the year but we expect marketing as a percentage of gross bookings to be a little higher than it was in 2019 and also in 2021. Of course, an increasing direct mix helps our marketing efficiency and we believe the investments we're making will result in a higher direct mix over time. Turning to sales not expenses; we expect these to be up 50 basis points higher than in 2021 as a percentage of gross bookings. This is mainly from additional payment processing costs but also impacted by anticipated higher third-party customer service expenses. The additional expenses related to payments are offset by a higher payment-related revenue. The last area is our more fixed operating expenses which include personnel, G&A and IT. We expect our personnel expenses to be impacted by higher-than-average annual wage increases, especially in the product and technology areas; and by planned headcount increasing in key areas, including product and technology and bond-related functions. We expect personnel expenses to be about 10% higher than in 2021. We expect that G&A and IT will both grow faster than personnel driven by a number of factors, including digital services taxes, returning to a hybrid work environmen”