“We expect the negative impact on timing to mostly go away in 2023, and we also expect that our payments mix will continue to add to take rates.”

In context

“ead, we’re encouraged by the strong trends we’re seeing in Q1 so far. However, we do expect continued volatility in our top line trends, which makes it very difficult to predict how the top line will progress during the year and how the full year will turn out. Assuming a moderation in growth from current levels and taking into account the more difficult comparisons as we move through the year, our full year commentary assumes low-teens gross booking growth versus 2022. Of course, it’s early in the year, but this is our best estimate at this point in time. For the full year, we expect our 2023 revenue as a percentage of gross bookings to be about 50 basis points higher than in 2022, which will result in year-over-year revenue growth is higher than our year-over-year gross bookings growth. We expect the negative impact on timing to mostly go away in 2023, and we also expect that our payments mix will continue to add to take rates. Partly offsetting these are continued increases in the mix of flights in our business, an increase in merchandising spend versus 2022. We expect marketing and merchandising combined as the percentage of gross bookings will be about the same as in 2022. We expect our more fixed expenses in 2023 to grow about 20%, which is similar to the growth last year. We expect these more fixed expenses to grow more slowly in future years. As a result, we expect to deliver a record level of EBITDA in 2023 while continue to expand our EBITDA margins by a couple of percentage points versus 2022. In closing, we are pleased with our Q4 results and the early trends we’re seeing in 2023. We remain confident that our strategic priorities will enable us to provide better services for our travels and partners. W”