(Bloomberg) -- Booking Holdings Inc., the parent company to almost a dozen travel brands including Kayak and Priceline, delivered a disappointing forecast for the third quarter, even as it posted second-quarter results that mostly beat analysts’ expectations. The stock tumbled in Friday trading.
In the current quarter, Booking expects growth of 3% to 5% in room nights sold, Chief Financial Officer Ewout Steenbergen said on a call with investors on Thursday, blaming “mild moderation” in the European travel market. Wall Street was expecting gains of 6.6% in the third quarter. Gross travel bookings should rise 2% to 4%, falling short of the 6.9% analysts predicted, due to a decline in flight prices, the company added.
Shares of the company fell as much as 10.2% after trading opened in New York on Friday, the biggest intraday decline since February. The stock had been up 3.3% this year through Thursday’s close, trailing the S&P 500 Index.
Booking’s forecast echoes the weaker-than-expected outlook reported by hotel chain Marriott International, Delta Airlines and United Airlines last month, adding to concerns over a broader slowdown in consumer spending on travel despite the company’s solid second-quarter results.
In the period ended June 30, the number of nights sold to customers through Booking’s platforms grew 7.1% to 287 million, the company said in a statement, surpassing analysts’ expectations. Adjusted earnings per share were $41.90, compared with analysts’ estimate of $38.20.
However, gross travel bookings, which include taxes and fees, were $41.4 billion, missing a projection of $41.8 billion.
There have been signs leading into the peak vacation season that travel spending has been broadly slowing. Second-quarter web traffic for online travel sites, including Booking and peers Expedia Group Inc. and Airbnb, fell 3% year-over-year and further decelerated in July, Jefferies analysts wrote in a July 23 note.
Expedia and Airbnb are both set to report quarterly earnings next week.
(Updates with share move on Friday and background from July earnings.)
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