Booking.com to lay off 25% of its employees


08/05/2020

The American company Booking Holdings, which owns the online hotel booking service Booking.com, has announced its intention to cut 25% of its employees amid a sharp drop in tourist travel during the pandemic. The company announced such plans in a notice filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday. Booking.com employs over 17,000 people, so the cuts should affect over 4,000 service employees worldwide.



Luca Conti
“The COVID-19 crisis has devastated the travel industry, and we continue to feel the impact as travel volumes remain significantly lower,” Booking.com said in a notice. “While we did our best to keep as much more jobs, we believe we must restructure to fit our vision for the future of tourism.”

Booking Holdings' entire business is built around tourism: apart from Booking.com, it owns online ticket services, hotels and other travel services Momondo and KAYAK, as well as several other similar platforms. In early July, the UN Conference on Trade and Development published a forecast according to which the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the most optimistic scenario, will cost the tourism industry $ 1.2 trillion, and according to the most pessimistic one - $ 3.3 trillion.

Earlier, travel site TripAdvisor and short-term rental service Airbnb also reported a 25% reduction in employees due to the pandemic.

source: cnn.com