Item 1. Business

The COVID-19 pandemic has continued to profoundly impact our business, employees, partners, consumers, communities, and stockholders. We were encouraged to see the distribution of vaccines and the development of other medical interventions to COVID-19 during 2021, but the emergence of new variants continues to make the shape and timing of a recovery uncertain. We remain confident that over time there will be a strong recovery for travel demand globally, and are focused on executing on our key strategic priorities so we emerge from this period in a position of strength. As we continue our efforts to make our brands the most trusted and convenient platforms for consumers and partners, we have taken important actions in 2021 including:

• expanding and enhancing our flight product at Booking.com, which is a key component of our Connected Trip vision;

• entering into an agreement to acquire Etraveli Group in November and completing our acquisition of Getaroom in December;

• increasing our internal collaboration efforts;

• continuing to build out our payments platform and payments capabilities across the Company; and

• launching new product features to make travel more sustainable and inclusive.

Our mission to make it easier for everyone to experience the world remains unchanged. We seek to empower people to cut through travel barriers, such as money, time, language, and overwhelming options, so they can use our services to easily and confidently get where they want to go, stay where they want to stay, dine where they want to dine, pay how they want to pay, and experience what they want to experience. We connect consumers wishing to make travel reservations with travel service providers around the world through our online platforms, which allow consumers to: book a broad array of accommodations (including hotels, motels, resorts, homes, apartments, bed and breakfasts, hostels, and other alternative and traditional accommodations properties) and a flight to their destination; make a car rental reservation or arrange for an airport taxi; make a dinner reservation; or book a vacation package, tour, activity, or cruise. Consumers can also use our meta-search services to easily compare travel reservation information, such as flight, hotel, and rental car reservations, from hundreds of online travel platforms at once. In addition, we offer other services to consumers and partners, such as travel-related insurance products and restaurant management services to restaurants.

We offer these services through six primary consumer-facing brands: Booking.com, Priceline, agoda, Rentalcars.com, KAYAK, and OpenTable. We continue to increase the collaboration, cooperation, and interdependency among our brands to provide consumers with the most comprehensive services and maximize the benefits of our scale. For example, when a traveler books an accommodation through Booking.com, we may offer relevant rental car or airport transfer transportation services

supported by our Rentalcars.com brand, and hotel reservations available through Booking.com are also generally available through agoda and Priceline. The following table shows the key services we offer to consumers:

The results of our business outside of the U.S. consist of the results of Booking.com, agoda, and Rentalcars.com in their entirety, and the parts of the KAYAK and OpenTable businesses located outside the U.S. This classification is independent of where the consumer resides, where the consumer is physically located while using our services or the location of the travel service provider or restaurant. For example, a reservation made through Booking.com (which is domiciled in the Netherlands) at a hotel in New York by a consumer in the United States is part of the results of our businesses outside of the U.S. During the year ended December 31, 2021, the revenues from our businesses outside of the U.S. (the substantial majority of which is generated by Booking.com) represented approximately 87% of our consolidated revenues. We earn a significant majority of our revenues from facilitating accommodation reservations. See Note 18 to the Consolidated Financial Statements for more geographic information.

Our common stock is listed on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol "BKNG." We refer to our company and all of our subsidiaries and brands collectively as "Booking Holdings," the "Company," "we," "our," or "us."

Our Business Model

We derive substantially all of our revenues from providing online travel reservation services, which facilitate online travel purchases between travel service providers (which we generally refer to as "partners") and travelers (which we generally refer to as "consumers"). We also earn revenues from advertising services, restaurant reservations, and various other services, such as travel-related insurance products and restaurant management services for restaurants.

For the year ended December 31, 2021, we had revenues of $11.0 billion, which we classify as "agency" revenues, "merchant" revenues, and "advertising and other" revenues.

• Agency revenues are derived from travel-related transactions where we do not facilitate payments from travelers for the services provided. Agency revenues consist almost entirely of travel reservation commissions from our accommodation, rental car, and airline reservation services. We invoice the travel service providers for our commissions after travel is completed.

• Merchant revenues are derived from transactions where we facilitate payments from travelers for the services provided, generally at the time of booking. Merchant revenues include travel reservation commissions and transaction net revenues (i.e., the amount charged to travelers less the amount owed to travel service providers); credit card processing rebates and customer processing fees; and ancillary fees, including travel-related insurance revenues.

• Advertising and other revenues are derived primarily from (a) revenues earned by KAYAK for sending referrals to online travel companies ("OTCs") and travel service providers and for advertising placements on its platforms and (b) revenues earned by OpenTable for its restaurant reservation services and subscription fees for restaurant management services.

Our Strategy

We aim to demonstrate global leadership in online travel and restaurant reservation and related services by:

• providing consumers with the most comprehensive choices and prices at any time, in any place, on any device;

• making it easy for people to find, book, pay for, and experience their travel desires;

• offering platforms, tools, and insights to our business partners to help them be successful; and

• operating our business sustainably and supporting sustainable travel choices by our consumers and partners.

We focus on relentless innovation and execution and a commitment to serve both consumers and partners with unmatched service and best-in-class technology. Although new variants of COVID-19 continue to make the shape and timing of recovery uncertain, we believe the global online travel and dining industries will gradually return to pre-pandemic levels and consumer purchasing will continue to shift from traditional offline to online channels. As travel demand returns, we expect to benefit from this online growth by expanding our service offerings and markets. In particular, we seek to (a) leverage technology to provide consumers with the best experience, (b) partner with travel service providers and restaurants to our mutual benefit, (c) operate multiple brands that collaborate with each other, and (d) invest in profitable and sustainable growth.

• Provide the best consumer experience.** Offering consumers an outstanding online experience is essential to our success. We focus on providing consumers with: (a) intuitive, easy-to-use online travel and restaurant reservation and search services; (b) a comprehensive selection of accommodations, other travel offerings, restaurants and payment options; (c) informative and useful content, such as pictures, accommodation and restaurant details, reviews, and sustainability information; and (d) excellent customer service. Our goal is to make travel easy, frictionless, and personal and to offer consumers the most value, the most trusted brands, the most personalized experience, and the most extensive, varied, and comprehensive travel service selection in every geography. We believe that our continued work to build out our payments capabilities across the Company helps to remove some of the friction in the booking process and enables us to offer additional value for travelers. Further, we endeavor to provide excellent customer service in a variety of ways, including through call centers and online platforms and the use of chatbots and other technologies, so that consumers can be confident that booking reservations through us will be a positive experience.

Although the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic persisted in 2021, we continue to innovate and invest in our services in order to emerge from the pandemic in a strong position to meet the needs of consumers and partners. We seek to grow our business through innovation by providing a best-in-class user experience with intuitive, easy-to-use online platforms (i.e., websites and mobile apps) and building stronger relationships with our customers and partners. As a result, we continue to execute against our long-term strategy to build a seamless offering of multiple elements of travel, which we refer to as the "Connected Trip." We believe that through innovation and the utilization of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, the Connected Trip will simplify and improve all aspects of the travel experience, including discovery, planning, booking, paying, coordinating itineraries among travel service providers, and automatic rescheduling. For example, if a traveler’s flight is delayed, we envision that ultimately the Connected Trip will not only alert the traveler, but also automatically arrange for a late arrival at the hotel, change a dinner reservation and alert companion diners, reschedule the car arranged for airport transfer, find a later connecting flight, offer one-click rebooking and payment for any other changes, and manage other impacts from the delayed flight. We believe offering travelers a compelling flight product alongside our other travel products is a key component of our Connected Trip vision. In 2021, we made progress in building out a flight offering at Booking.com, including expanding into 34 countries by the end of the year. We expect that these developments will benefit our travelers, travel service providers, and restaurant partners, as well as provide a compelling and differentiated service offering that will drive enhanced loyalty and frequency over time.

• Partner with travel service providers and restaurants.** We aim to establish mutually beneficial relationships with travel service providers and restaurants around the world. We believe that travel service providers and restaurants benefit from participating in our services by increasing their distribution channels, demand, profile and reputation, and inventory utilization in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Travel service providers and restaurants benefit from our trusted brands and marketing efforts, expertise in offering an excellent consumer experience, and ability to offer their inventory in markets and to consumers that they may otherwise be unable or unlikely to reach, for instance due to language or payments services we are able to offer on their behalf.

• Operate multiple brands.** We operate multiple brands, which allows us to offer our services in ways that appeal to different consumers, pursue distinct marketing and business strategies, encourage experimentation and

innovation, provide numerous service offerings, and focus on specific markets or geographies. At the same time, we continue to increase the collaboration, cooperation, and interdependency among our brands in our efforts to provide consumers with the most comprehensive and value-oriented services. We invest resources to support organic growth by all our brands, whether through increased marketing, geographic expansion, technological innovation, or increased access to accommodations, flights, rental cars, restaurants, or other services.

• Invest in profitable and sustainable growth. We seek to offer online services that meet the needs and the expectations of consumers, travel service providers, and restaurants and that we believe will result in mutual long-term profitability and growth. We intend to accomplish this through continuous investment and innovation, growing our businesses in new and current markets, expanding our services, and ensuring that we provide an appealing, intuitive, and easy-to-use consumer experience. We have made significant investments in people, technology, marketing, and expanded, new, or additional services, such as improving the selection of our extensive collection of accommodations including homes, apartments, and other unique places to stay, expanded flight and ground transportation offerings, payments, and other offerings. In 2021, we continued to scale our flight offerings to more markets, and offer payments solutions to more customers and partners. We continue to seek to maximize the benefits of our scale by sharing resources and technological innovations among our brands and co-developing new services. We also regularly evaluate, and may pursue and consummate, potential strategic acquisitions, partnerships, joint ventures, or investments, whether to expand our businesses into complementary areas, expand our current businesses, acquire innovative technology, or for other reasons. For instance, in December 2021, we completed the acquisition of Getaroom, a business-to-business distributor of hotel rooms, which in conjunction with our Priceline business we expect to increase value for both hotel and affiliate partners, and in November 2021, we entered into an agreement to acquire European-based flights booking provider Etraveli Group.

Service Offerings

Booking.com and Rentalcars.com. Booking.com is the world's leading brand for booking online accommodation reservations, based on room nights booked, with operations worldwide and headquarters in the Netherlands. At December 31, 2021, Booking.com offered accommodation reservation services for approximately 2.4 million properties in over 220 countries and territories and in over 40 languages, consisting of over 400,000 hotels, motels, and resorts and over 1.9 million homes, apartments, and other unique places to stay.

In 2021, Booking.com significantly expanded its flight offering to 34 markets and in-destination tours and activities to more than 840 cities around the world. Rentalcars.com operates as part of Booking.com and offers online rental car reservation services in over 48,800 locations throughout the world, with customer support in over 40 languages. Booking.com and Rentalcars.com also offer pre-booked taxi and black car services at over 1,450 airports throughout the world.

Priceline. Priceline is a leader in the discount travel reservation business, offering online travel reservation services primarily in North America, with headquarters in Norwalk, Connecticut. Priceline offers consumers hotel, flight, and rental car reservation services, as well as vacation packages, cruises, and hotel distribution services for partners and affiliates.

Agoda. Agoda is a leading online accommodation reservation service catering primarily to consumers in the Asia-Pacific region, with headquarters in Singapore and operations in Bangkok, Thailand, and elsewhere. Agoda also offers flight, ground transportation, and activities reservation services.

KAYAK. KAYAK, headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, provides an online price comparison service (often referred to as "meta-search") that allows consumers to easily search and compare travel itineraries and prices, including airline ticket, accommodation reservation, and rental car reservation information, from hundreds of online travel platforms at once. KAYAK offers its services in over 60 countries, with its largest market in the United States, through various websites including momondo, Cheapflights, and HotelsCombined.

OpenTable. OpenTable is a leading brand for booking online restaurant reservations. With significant operations in San Francisco, California, OpenTable provides online restaurant reservation services to consumers and reservation management services to restaurants, primarily in the United States.

Marketing and Brand Awareness

We have established widely used and recognized e-commerce brands through marketing and promotional campaigns, particularly strategic use of performance marketing spend, which can be variable based on travel demand, and which saw increased volatility during the COVID-19 pandemic. We have invested considerable resources in establishing and maintaining our brands, and intend to continue to invest resources in marketing and other brand building to preserve and enhance consumer awareness of our brands.

Competition

We compete globally with both online and traditional travel and restaurant reservation and related services. The markets for the services we offer are intensely competitive, constantly evolving, and subject to rapid change, and current and new competitors can launch new services at a relatively low cost. Some of our current and potential competitors, such as Google, Apple, Alibaba, Tencent, Amazon, and Facebook, have significantly more customers or users, consumer data, and financial and other resources than we do, and may be able to leverage other aspects of their businesses (e.g., search or mobile device businesses) to enable them to compete more effectively with us. For example, Google has entered various aspects of the online travel market and has grown rapidly in this area, including by offering a flight meta-search product ("Google Flights"), a hotel meta-search product ("Google Hotel Ads"), its "Book on Google" reservation functionality, Google Travel, a planning tool that aggregates its flight, hotel, and packages products in one website, and by integrating its hotel meta-search products and restaurant information and reservation products into its Google Maps app.

We currently, or may in the future, compete with a variety of companies, including:

• online travel or restaurant reservation services and meta-search services;

• large online search, social networking, and marketplace companies;

• travel service providers such as accommodation providers, rental car or car- or ride-sharing companies, and airlines, and other travel service providers, many of which have their own branded online platforms to which they drive business;

• traditional travel agencies, travel management companies, wholesalers, and tour operators; and

• companies offering technology services and software solutions to travel service providers.

For more information regarding current and potential competitors and the competitive nature of the markets in which we operate, please see Part I, Item 1A, Risk Factors - "Intense competition could reduce our market share and harm our financial performance." in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Government Regulation

Our ability to provide our services and any future services is affected by legal regulations of national and local governments and regulatory authorities around the world, many of which are evolving and subject to new or revised interpretations. Examples of these laws and regulations, which vary and sometimes conflict, include the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the U.K. Bribery Act, the proposed Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act in the European Union, and local laws or regulations relating to corrupt payments to governmental officials or third parties, data privacy requirements, labor relations, non-discrimination, human rights, anti-human trafficking, taxes, antitrust or competition laws, sanctioned countries or sanctioned persons, and consumer protection laws. Violations could result in fines, penalties, and/or criminal sanctions against us, our officers, or our employees, and/or prohibitions on how we conduct or propose to conduct our business. They could also result in prohibitions on our ability to offer our services in one or more countries, delay or prevent potential acquisitions, and materially damage our reputation, brands, global expansion efforts, ability to attract and retain employees and business partners, business, and operating results. Even if we comply with these laws and regulations, doing business in certain jurisdictions or violations of these laws and regulations by the accommodations, restaurants, travel service providers, or other parties with which we conduct business runs the risk of harming our reputation and our brands, which could adversely affect our results of operations or stock price. Regulations that impact our business or our industry include:

• Data Protection and Privacy: Regulatory and legislative activity in the areas of privacy, data protection, and information and cyber security governing parts of our business continues to increase worldwide. We have established and continue to maintain policies and a global governance framework to comply with laws that apply to our business,

meet evolving stakeholder expectations, and support business innovation and growth. In the European Union, the General Data Protection Regulation (the "GDPR") imposes significant compliance obligations and costs. In the United States, the California Consumer Privacy Act (the "CCPA") and the California Privacy Rights Act ("CPRA"), set to become operative in January 2023, impose new privacy requirements and rights for consumers in California that will result in additional compliance complexity, risks, and costs. Some data protection and privacy laws afford consumers a private right of action against companies like ours for certain statutory violations. In many cases, data protection and privacy laws restrict the transfers of information among our subsidiaries, including employee information.

• Competition, Consumer Protection and Online Commerce: Competition and consumer protection laws and regulations around the world impact aspects of our business including contractual parity arrangements with accommodation providers and the manner in which we display information on our platform. There is significant legislative and public focus on the technology industry, especially as technology companies become larger, including in relation to the regulation of digital platforms. The European Commission’s proposed Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act legislation is expected to give regulators more instruments to investigate digital businesses and impose new rules on certain digital platforms if they are determined to be "gatekeepers." The proposed legislation is not final and it is not known what the laws will look like in their final forms. If regulators were to presume that we are a gatekeeper under the Digital Markets Act as currently proposed and we are not successful in rebutting that presumption, we would be subject to additional rules and regulations not applicable to all our competitors and our business could be harmed.

• Regulation of the Travel Industry: Our business could be impacted by travel-related regulations such as those imposed by local jurisdictions to regulate the use of alternative accommodations and address the issue of "overtourism." As our business evolves, in particular as we offer linked travel arrangements or travel packages as a part of the Connected Trip, we expect to become subject to existing and new regulations. For example, some parts of our business are already subject to certain requirements of the EU Package Travel Directive (the "Package Directive"), and as our offerings continue to diversify and expand, we may become subject to additional requirements of the Package Directive.

• Payments: As we expand our payments services to consumers and business partners, we expect to become subject to additional regulations, such as financial services regulations and license requirements, which will result in increased compliance costs and complexities, including those associated with the implementation of new or more stringent internal controls. We are also subject to payment card association rules and obligations under our contracts with payment card processors, including the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, compliance with which is complex and costly.

For further discussion of these regulations and how other global regulations may impact our business, see Part I, Item 1A-Risk Factors - "Legal, Tax, Regulatory, Compliance, and Reputational Risks."

Operations and Technology

Our business is supported by multiple systems and platforms, which were designed with an emphasis on scalability, performance, reliability, redundancy, and security. These systems and platforms are generally independent among our brands, though some have become more connected or shared over time. Our software systems, platforms, and architecture use a variety of widely-used software tools and database systems. We are modernizing our technology by building new applications with modern development tools and application programming interfaces and moving certain systems and data to public cloud infrastructure.

These internal systems and platforms are designed to include open application protocol interfaces that can provide connectivity to vendors in the industries in which we operate. These include large global systems, such as accommodation, flight, and rental car reservation systems, and financial service providers, as well as individual accommodation service providers, such as independent hotels. Our applications utilize digital certificates to help us conduct secure communications and transactions, as appropriate. The systems infrastructure and web and database servers of our worldwide operations are primarily hosted in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, Singapore, Hong Kong, and four locations in the United States, each of which provides network connectivity, networking infrastructure, and 24-hour monitoring and engineering support typical of hosted data centers. All data center facilities have a continuous power supply system, generators, redundant servers, and multiple back-up systems. Although we take steps to mitigate the effects of any loss or reduction in service at one of our hosting facilities, if a hosting facility were inaccessible or otherwise experienced a disruption in service for any reason, we could experience a disruption to our services, loss of transactions and revenue, and consumer complaints.

We provide customer service through a mix of in-house call centers and outsourced third-party services.

Intellectual Property

Over time and through acquisitions, we have assembled a portfolio of patents, trademarks, service marks, copyrights, domain names, and trade secrets covering our services. We regard the protection of our intellectual property as important to our success. We protect our intellectual property rights by relying on national, federal, state, and common law rights, as well as a variety of administrative procedures, regulations, conventions, and treaties throughout the world. We also rely on contractual restrictions to protect our proprietary rights. We enter into confidentiality and invention assignment agreements with employees and contractors and nondisclosure agreements with parties with which we conduct business in order to limit access to and disclosure of our proprietary information. We also have procured intellectual property licenses from third parties. See Part I, Item 1A, Risk Factors - "We face risks related to our intellectual property."

Seasonality and Other Timing Factors

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, our gross bookings were generally similar in the first three quarters of the year and higher than in the fourth quarter. We generally recognize our marketing activities as the expense is incurred, which is typically in the quarter when the gross bookings for the associated reservations are recognized. However, we would generally recognize revenue from these bookings when the travel begins (at "check-in"), and accommodation check-ins in Europe and North America are generally highest in the third quarter during those regions' peak summer travel season and lowest in the first quarter. As a result of this timing difference between when we record marketing expense and when we generally recognize associated revenue, we typically experience our highest levels of profitability in the third quarter and our lowest level of profitability in the first quarter. In addition to the typical seasonality effects on our business, our quarterly results and quarterly year-over-year growth rates can be impacted by:

• The length of the booking window (the average time between the booking of a travel reservation and when the travel begins), which impacts the relationship between our gross bookings (recognized at the time of booking) and our revenues (recognized at the time of check-in);

• The level of acceleration or deceleration in the gross bookings growth rate. For example, our operating margins are typically negatively impacted in the near term from gross bookings and related variable marketing expense growth acceleration, as revenue growth is typically less impacted by accelerating gross bookings growth in the near term. Any such acceleration would positively impact revenue growth in subsequent periods as a portion of the revenue recognized from such gross bookings will occur in future quarters. Conversely, in periods where our gross bookings growth rate substantially decelerates, our operating margins typically benefit; and

• The date on which certain holidays (e.g., Easter and Ramadan) fall.

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted the booking window and seasonality of our business in 2020 and 2021. For example, in 2021 we saw a contraction of the booking window as an increased percentage of bookings were made for travel that was to occur close to the time of booking. It is difficult to accurately predict travel patterns given the COVID-19 pandemic, and we may not experience typical seasonality effects on our business throughout the duration of the pandemic, and potentially for some time thereafter. As the travel market recovers from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, we expect to see periods of gross bookings growth rate acceleration, which will likely result in periods where our operating margins are negatively impacted due to the timing difference of when marketing expense is recorded and when revenue is recognized. For additional information regarding factors affecting the seasonality of our business, see Part II, Item 7, Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations - Seasonality and Other Timing Matters.

Human Capital Resources

Our employees drive our success and are fundamental to delivering on our mission to make it easier for everyone to experience the world. Our goal is to attract, develop, and retain highly-skilled talent with a significant focus on a diverse workforce operating in an inclusive environment. The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly shifted the ways and from where people work and we are committed to adapting to achieve our human capital management goals.

Workforce

Our Board of Directors and the Compensation Committee have oversight of our human capital management. We operate multiple brands to appeal to different consumers, pursue distinct marketing and business strategies, encourage experimentation and innovation, provide numerous service offerings, and focus on various markets. While we continue to

increase the collaboration, cooperation, and interdependency among our brands, this model inherently results in diversity of culture among our brands, which often manifests in unique approaches to human capital management.

At December 31, 2021, we employed approximately 20,300 employees, of which approximately 3,400 were based in the United States, and approximately 16,900 were based outside the United States. Approximately 99% of our employees are full-time employees. We also retain independent contractors, including to support our customer service, website content translation, and system support functions.

Employees by Geography (as of December 31, 2021)

Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging

We believe that a diverse workforce operating in an inclusive environment is critical to leveraging our human capital to achieve our long-term strategic goals, particularly in the technology industry where many populations remain underrepresented. We strive for our leadership and workforce to reflect the broad spectrum of customers and partners we work with throughout the world because we believe this is the best way for us to connect with the viewpoints, backgrounds, and experiences of our customers and partners. Our workplaces embrace the different cultures and practices of our diverse employees. We believe we abide by the laws and regulations that govern our employment practices and we prohibit unlawful discrimination of any type.

As of December 31, 2021, approximately 50% of our employees were women, approximately 23% of our technology positions were filled by women, and approximately 31% of our extended leadership team (which includes the Company's senior leadership and extends one to four levels below the chief executive officer of each brand company (depending on the number of employees within each brand)) were women. We are committed to pay equity, regardless of gender, race, or ethnicity. With the help of an independent compensation consultant, we conduct pay equity studies every other year, and in the off years, we work on remediation plans to address outliers.

Gender Diversity of Employees (as of December 31, 2021)

While a significant percentage of our workforce is located in jurisdictions that may present challenges to tracking employee racial or ethnic demographics for legal or privacy reasons, we are seeking to assess our employees' experience of inclusion in other ways. For example, in 2021 we hired a third party consultant to conduct a global inclusion survey of our

workforce that gave us more information on the experience of inclusion for our employees in underrepresented groups. We also publish our consolidated EEO-1 report for employees in the United States (which represents approximately 17% of our workforce as of December 31, 2021).

We support equality and inclusivity across our workforce through various initiatives at all the brand companies. For example, Booking.com has several employee resource groups including: B.Proud to support the LGBTQ community and its allies; B.Able to support employees with differing physical and mental abilities; B.Bold to support the Black and persons-of-color (POC) community; and B.Equal to support gender equality. Agoda supports employee resource groups aimed at fostering greater workplace inclusion with initiatives such as the Agoda Colors and Women at Agoda. At Priceline, the Women Impacting Priceline resource group empowers women to champion their professional development and improve gender intelligence. KAYAK and OpenTable support their employees through employee resource groups, including communities for women, people of color, people with disabilities, veterans, and LGBTQ, which promote increased inclusion and engagement. We are proud of the progress we have made in this space and recognize we can always improve. As part of recruitment, we have provided training to ensure interviewers consider all candidates objectively. Our brands are pursuing various efforts to ensure that candidate slates are diverse. We have deployed unconscious bias training and have encouraged leadership at our brands to participate in diversity and inclusion workshops and reviews to ensure that these tenets are core to our strategy. Additionally, we are entering our sixth year of operating our Women in Leadership program, which is a Company-wide initiative designed to support the advancement and development of high-performing women within the Company with the goal of building and enabling gender diversity in our executive pipeline.

Attraction, Development, and Retention

We work diligently to attract the best and most innovative talent from a diverse range of sources to grow our business and achieve our long term strategic goals. We believe that we offer a rich culture where employees feel included and empowered to do their best work with opportunities to grow as well as competitive compensation and benefits. For example, while the specifics can vary by brand, in the United States our employee benefit plans generally include: coverage for infertility treatments, gender reassignment surgery, gender-neutral domestic partner benefits, and paid parental leave.

Despite the challenges of shifting the vast majority of our workforce to work-from-home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we continue to prioritize and invest in creating opportunities for employees to grow and build their careers through training and development programs. These include offering tailored learning opportunities to enable employees to upskill while at work and driving frequent career conversations between employees and their managers, as well as executive talent and succession planning.

Competition for talent in our industry has historically been intense. However, with the proliferation of global working from anywhere policies and the associated increased ability for employees to seek out and switch jobs that may not have been accessible to them previously, the competition for employees, particularly software engineers, mobile communications talent, and other technology professionals, has intensified. This is further exacerbated by the greater impact of COVID-19 on the travel industry versus other industries that employ technology talent that were not as directly impacted as travel. As a result, we have experienced increased costs associated with attracting and retaining our employees. We continue to focus on our employees’ engagement and mental well-being, career satisfaction, and development and succession planning.

We recognize that expectations for the ways and places in which employees work have shifted dramatically as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. As our brand companies have considered hybrid and flexible work-from-home policies for the longer term, we have continued to adhere to our principles of keeping employees safe and engaged. We have been flexible with how we form these policies for our various brands as we encounter new health-related information or emerging expectations in certain markets. Each of our brands has taken their own tailored approach to working policies that takes into account geographic location and the needs of current and prospective employees. A number of our brands have adopted or are exploring more flexible work arrangements, including hybrid work from office and home flex programs, and evaluating long-term fully remote arrangements.

We measure organizational culture and engagement so we can be responsive to our employees’ needs. The disruptions stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic have presented unique challenges to keeping employees engaged and supported at work. We shifted our approach to employee engagement in response to changing employee needs in a mostly-virtual workplace, by, for example, providing regular video-based CEO updates, virtual mental wellness workshops, and free access to a meditation app and telehealth services. We regularly connect with our employees through formal engagement surveys, work-from-home surveys, and quick pulse surveys to request feedback on the employee experience. The results of these efforts are shared with senior management at each of our brands who analyze areas of progress or prioritize areas for improvement in order to encourage and sustain employee engagement. We are proud that, notwithstanding the impact of COVID-19 on our

employees, business, and the travel industry, the results of our employee engagement surveys throughout 2021 broadly demonstrate a committed and engaged workforce.

Employee Relations

Although we have works councils or employee representatives in certain countries, our U.S. employees are not represented by a labor union and are not covered by a collective bargaining agreement. We work in close collaboration with works councils, employee representatives, and other organizations in the relevant jurisdictions. We have never had a work stoppage and we consider our relations with our employees to be good.

For more information, see Part I, Item 1A, Risk Factors - "We rely on the performance of highly skilled employees; and, if we are unable to retain or motivate key employees or hire, retain, and motivate well-qualified employees, our business would be harmed."

Company Websites

We maintain websites with the addresses www.bookingholdings.com, www.booking.com, www.priceline.com, www.agoda.com, www.rentalcars.com, www.kayak.com, and www.opentable.com, among others. We are not including the information contained on our websites as a part of, or incorporating it by reference into, this Annual Report on Form 10-K. We make available free of charge through the www.bookingholdings.com website our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to these reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act"), as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish such material to, the SEC. These reports and other information are also available, free of charge, at www.sec.gov. In addition, the Company's Code of Conduct is available through the www.bookingholdings.com website and any amendments to or waivers of the Code of Conduct will be disclosed on that website.