Zitat des Tages von Gillian Tans:
Traveling changes you as a person. If you buy something, it's so different than if you put your money into traveling.
I am a woman, and I am proud to say that I work in technology. But I also recognise that the combination of those two facts puts me in the minority.
Eventually, we want to be able to say, whether in your own neighborhood or a city across the globe, our technology will be needed to break through barriers - whether it's money, time, languages, or simply choice.
An American customer can book in English all over the world, but also, somebody from Japan or China can book in their own language everywhere. We translate all of our content into these languages, and that's quite unique. We service our direct customers - the innkeepers - as well in their own language.
Both business and leisure travellers are enjoying unprecedented levels of choice.
We believe in global scalability with local relevance.
Instead of traveling on a weekend, begin your trip on a Tuesday or Wednesday, which are often the cheapest days to fly. Being flexible with timing can help with savings.
We found we were able to create better, customer-centric product features more quickly with a more diverse product team.
There are a lot of threats out there. Amazon can enter the travel market. Google could enter the accommodation space. But that is not something that we actively focus on.
My mother was from an entrepreneurial family and very creative. She always pushed me to take risks, to do things I wouldn't have thought of.
There's no point being at the airport longer than needed.
The move to Internet-enable travel booking is creating massive convenience, efficiency, and savings for consumers.
Using science to tell us what customers are looking for is second nature for us here.
Typically, I get to the office around eight o'clock. I have a very mixed schedule, and I always try to keep time for things that are not planned. You need time for whatever might pop up in the week.
We have built out the diversity of our product teams, and we saw the caliber of our testing and experimentation improve significantly.
I've always been curious and taken many risks, but that is quite atypical for a woman. On the other hand, I think that's the only way to grow beyond yourself.
One in five of our customers books for business. But it's scaling very fast. As a result, we have tools for medium or small-sized companies to allow them set their price and give basic reporting functionality.
Eventually, people should just say 'give me the best hotel in a certain date in a certain location.'
The culture of Booking.com has been very good for me because it's a culture where you're allowed to fail. When you think about taking risks, if it's OK to fail, you actually do a lot more. And you learn a lot quicker.
People always travel no matter what.
India has a sizeable chunk of the Asian travel market - both inbound and outbound travel.
Traveling is an experience that you can always carry with you. It makes the world come together more so we understand each other better.
Understand tipping culture. Whereas Americans tip 15-20% when dining out, most European countries don't tip, as a service charge is typically included in the bill. Make sure you're not over-tipping by doing research before traveling.
Many people think we are a technology company, but we are totally customer-led.
A long time ago, we had to build interfaces to connect with other companies, and I thought that was a great idea. The company had to pay a lot of money to build it and basically launched it, but our whole operating system almost broke. So, we couldn't continue it. In the end, I had to go on the train to Paris to explain that I had spent millions.
Our mission is to empower people to experience the world.
Japan is a very important market for us and has grown remarkably as one of the most popular travel destinations in the world.
Not only do we need more women in the technology sector, we also clearly need to refocus energy on improving gender equality in the global economy.
From our earliest days, Booking.com has been deploying technology to help strip the friction out of travel.
Employing women is good for business.
Things like chatbots, machine learning tools, natural language processing, or sentiment analysis are applications of artificial intelligence that may one day profoundly change how we think about and transact in travel and local experiences.
And as a woman, you need to take risks. Don't stay too long in your own swim lane.
Recognizing that female participation in technology is lower than it should be, we are committed to bolstering female tech talent, eliminating obstacles and challenges they face, and fostering diversity.
We are a bottom-up culture, and we need a communications platform that can facilitate that.
Booking.com is one of the biggest translation companies in the world.
If firms were made to hire according to quotas, it might optimize the percentage of women in the industry, but that doesn't necessarily translate into more quality products for the customer.
