Travel company Booking.com laying off 25% of staff
The company is cutting about 4,000 jobs as a result of the coronavirus pandemic
More turbulence is hitting the travel industry.
Budget online hotel reservation website Booking.com is cutting up to 25 percent of its staffers – around 4,000 workers – globally, the company reported in a filing Tuesday.
Booking Holdings Inc. said in a filing it would lay off 25% of its staffers. (Booking.com / iStock).
Booking Holdings Inc., the owner of Booking.com and similar online travel booking companies like Kayak and Priceline, did not immediately return a request for comment. The layoffs will only impact Booking.com, according to the filing.
The company CEO Glen Fogel told employees on a call the job cuts were a result of the coronavirus pandemic that has plagued businesses across myriad industries, saying the last five months were “the largest social and economic crisis of our lifetime,” Bloomberg reported.
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BKNG | BOOKING HOLDINGS INC. | 3,430.14 | -13.77 | -0.40% |
The Norwalk, Conn.-based company is slated to announce the layoffs to employees on a “country by country basis with the first countries starting in Sept,” and complete announcements by the end of the year, the filing says.
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Booking.com is the latest travel business to get hit by a wave of financial troubles. Similar budget hotel and transportation booking company Expedia Group saw revenue decline 82 percent in the second quarter. And home vacation rental website Airbnb also cut 25 percent of its employees earlier this year.
What's more, Americans' apprehension about airline travel coupled with global bans on non-essential travel outside the U.S. has led commercial air travel to drop 95 percent.