Chief Executive Officer of Priceline, Booking Holdings Inc
The Phocuswright Conference 2025: Looking in the rearview mirror at Priceline
Priceline's CEO Brett Keller discusses his departure after 26 years at the OTA, the challenges he has encountered and the rapid ...
About Brett Keller
Brett Keller, CEO of Priceline, announced his departure from the company after 26 years, with his successor Bridget Zimmerman taking over on January 1, 2025. In a December 2024 interview, Keller stated he would remain for a few months to ensure a smooth transition. He said his biggest piece of advice to his successor was to "make sure you have the best possible team working around you." Keller expressed pride in "surviving some of the most challenging hits that a company can take over 25 years and coming out on top." He also said that Priceline's decision to keep the brand limited to North America was a "mistake" and that the company should have expanded worldwide. Throughout 2024, Keller discussed travel demand and the use of artificial intelligence. He stated that travel was "holding up quite well" despite inflation, with consumers continuing to prioritize travel over other spending. Keller noted that hotel prices were beginning to level off and that airlines were improving operationally, though he acknowledged that air travel had been "a mess" due to staffing shortages and delays. He highlighted Priceline's AI chatbot, "Penny," saying the company was using OpenAI's technology to create more natural conversations for planning, booking, and customer service. Keller said that AI would make travel "easier and faster" and that the industry was "finally on the verge of great personalization in travel."
Transcript (54 segments)
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Linda Fox0:08
Hi, I'm Linda Fox in the Focus Wire studio and I am joined by Brett Keller, CEO of Priceline until very recently. Welcome.
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Brett Keller0:16
Yes.
L
Linda Fox0:16
When do you actually step down or have you stepped down?
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Brett Keller0:20
I have not officially stepped down yet. In fact, still a few more weeks to go. My successor Bridget Zimmerman will be taking over on January 1st and I'll loiter around, as you know many CEOs do, for a few months just to make sure things go smoothly.
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Linda Fox0:34
Okay. What's your 25 years at Priceline, 10 as CEO? What's the biggest piece of advice that you're passing on to your successor?
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Brett Keller0:46
Make sure you have the best possible team working around you, which she currently does and she'll continue to add to that. I think that makes all of the difference when you're trying to execute in a very fast-paced and exciting industry like travel and especially in technology. You need people who know their business and are ready to deliver.
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Linda Fox1:03
Has your team been with you for that long period of time as well? Have you created that longevity within the team?
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Brett Keller1:11
Yes, absolutely. In fact, Priceline and Booking Holdings more largely, we have done a fantastic job of bringing leaders in who want to stay and who are really motivated to build and grow products. For my leadership team at Priceline, I do have a few new folks over the last couple of years, but the majority of the team has been with me for 5 to 10 to 15 years, depending on who we're talking about.
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Linda Fox1:36
Okay. I want to ask you, as you look back over your tenure, talk to us about the good, the bad, and the ugly. What have you loved? What have the challenges been?
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Brett Keller1:46
Sure. The good is that the Priceline story is one of the most exciting e-commerce stories in the history of the internet. It was one of the originals, founded on the East Coast, which was extremely unique, and we weathered some really difficult times and trials. We were one of the brands that was that close to going out of business. We had to redo our business model and come out of both 9/11 and the internet bubble collapsing, and we built a business out of it. Those were trying and difficult times, but that's what made us who we are today and gave us the longevity to be successful in the industry. The industry is just fantastic, the resilience of consumers, the people who want to build and grow products that serve that industry, and just the people it attracts. We love the people who work around us and all of our partners, our supply partners, just really solid people who you can trust and do business with.
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Linda Fox2:45
Okay. We were just talking before we went on camera about reactions. What's the greatest reaction or the funniest reaction you've had so far to your announcement?
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Brett Keller2:57
That's a very good question. Actually, I don't think I have a reaction.
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Linda Fox3:02
It's okay. I thought maybe your mom or somebody rang you and went, 'What? You gave up your job? It was a great job.'
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Brett Keller3:10
Not yet. I think what I've been so impressed with is how many people have reached out, not just from within the company, but from outside the company. News travels so fast. Within minutes of a press release going out, I had contacts from literally all over the world. That's quite nice.
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Linda Fox3:28
That's really nice. Okay. Rapid pace of change. As you prepare to step outside of Priceline, what do you think we're going to see or continue to see in the coming months inside the travel industry in particular?
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Brett Keller3:48
Obviously everyone wants to talk about AI, and for a good reason. It is rapidly changing the industry. Even though we're not quite seeing all of the front-facing benefits yet, they're coming. Our company in particular has engaged for several years on building out the infrastructure and systems to be able to deploy it. Now we're building the product, and it's moving along very nicely. We're still a few years away from reaching the vision of AI agents that can really do a lot of things for you successfully, but they're coming and that will change the ecosystem of travel. Everyone wants to create and build that product. The big distribution players, the OTAs, the suppliers would love to have them. The question is who can build the best tech and product and who can put it to market first.
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Linda Fox4:41
Does it continue to excite you? Is there a part of you that thinks, 'Okay, I don't need to take so much attention of it. Maybe I'll just sit and watch a bit of TV,' or are you going to be a person that stays on top of all those developments?
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Brett Keller4:53
It's too exciting to stay away from. We've been in the industry for 27 years. We've been through a couple of really exciting tech evolutions. First was the internet, then mobile devices, then cloud, but this one is a big one. You can't turn away from it and not engage with it.
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Linda Fox5:16
Does anything feel like anything that's gone before? Is anything comparable in any way?
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Brett Keller5:24
The advent of the iPhone has some similarities. When the iPhone came out, no one knew how to code to that product base. Our developers and product people had to learn on the fly how to develop and build products that consumers would love in a completely new interface. We were so desktop focused, we had no idea how to build mobile. Now we're seeing all the talent in our company working on these products is homegrown. It's people who have picked it up on the fly, learned how to write prompts, build the backend code and infrastructure to support it. There are a lot of similarities there.
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Linda Fox6:07
The outcome is going to be quite different though. I guess the iterations we saw at the time could also draw parallels because it was rapid and exciting and we hadn't seen it before. Okay. What's your best advice for anyone starting in the industry now?
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Brett Keller6:29
My best advice would be to build something that solves a real world problem. If you're looking to recreate the same thing everyone else has with a different skin or wrapper, especially higher up the funnel when it comes to trip planning or trip research, those are a dime a dozen. There are millions of those in the ecosystem. They'll continue to turn out and the majority never go anywhere. But the people who look deeper into the infrastructure and systems and build products that solve a problem a supplier has, an OTA has, or the consumer is really struggling with, even if it's just a micro segment of the industry, there's a lot of opportunity to help the overall infrastructure of travel get better. Second, be careful in believing that you can acquire customers effectively in today's marketplace. That is probably the hardest thing to do in today's world.
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Linda Fox7:21
Those two elements you've just mentioned are age-old when it comes to startups: a product that people want and the fact that you're going to have to go out and get your customers. I know I sigh inwardly when I see another trip planning startup.
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Brett Keller7:40
Yes.
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Linda Fox7:40
Okay. We talked about your advice. What other trends? Obviously more of the same in terms of what's happening top of the funnel. What else do you think we're going to be seeing as we look ahead to 2026?
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Brett Keller7:57
This sounds a little cliche, but we really are finally on the verge of great personalization in travel. I was here 25 years ago listening to Cherry Jones talk about the giant database they were building and how that would create personalized experiences for consumers. Here we are 25 years later. Do you really feel like what you're seeing in your product experience is highly personalized? I think the answer is no. There are little nuances here and there. We're trying to put the right hotels up in front of you, change a little bit of front-end merchandising, but the reality is there's very little personalization that has been successful. The technology we're seeing now really breaks down the barriers and can empower that. It's easy to personalize in large chunks of people at scale, like five different personas, but when you're talking about personalizing down to you, the things you like to do, the places you like to stay, the types of hotel you like, we really do see a path forward now to accomplish that with the technology.
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Linda Fox8:56
Will the trust come alongside that really quickly? Consumers have been given that choice for so long and they're used to shopping around. Will they make that trust leap quickly?
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Brett Keller9:08
I think so. It depends on the established relationship you already have with your existing consumer base. If they believe the products and services you provide today are valuable, this will just be another check mark that adds a lot of validity to what you can deliver. If you are brand new, that creates a much more difficult challenge because you don't have the history, context, and elements to personalize for the consumer, unlike folks who've been in the industry for a while who have that information. I think brand matters potentially even more moving forward than less.
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Linda Fox9:46
Do you see on the horizon how we search and book travel now versus how we will search and book travel? Do you see that tipping point already or are we still some way off?
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Brett Keller10:00
We see a path towards it, but we're still quite a ways away. We've done a lot of testing around the margins, starting to inject what I think everyone would admit are our LLM models and conversational agents. We have Penny, they're still very young. We're trying not to force those too quickly into consumers' hands and interrupt what would be a nice and easy transaction flow. But if we can continue to prove to them that as the product matures, you'll see us move that more and more up into the booking funnel. If we can see success from that, you'll see us really put the accelerator down and put that in front of consumers.
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Linda Fox10:41
Okay. One of your roles was as marketing director in your tenure at Priceline, and of course you would have been there when there was the great William Shatner campaign, which is often called the greatest travel marketing campaign of all time.
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Brett Keller10:57
Thank you. I appreciate that.
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Linda Fox10:59
Well, I think it was in Christina's notes actually, but it's memorable. Everybody talks about that one and remembers it. So what I wanted to ask you is how you think marketing is changing.
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Brett Keller11:14
In the travel ecosystem, especially among the online travel agencies, following that campaign almost every player has leaned into some type of character representation for their brand. That set the stage for needing a spokesperson or a persona to speak on behalf of the brand. But the way people are consuming media now has changed so much. Putting out a traditional branded campaign in traditional media has really shifted. We're all trying to figure out the best mix of media and the right creative to be effective in that model. The risk is you spread your dollars so far across so many channels that you have no effect at all. There is still great value in video and video exposure, it's just coming through multiple platforms. It still really matters if you have great creative. One of the great successes of the negotiator campaign was that he as a spokesperson actually represented what we really did as people every day inside our company. He fought for the very best prices and deals. That resonated because he wasn't a spokesperson, he was us, he was the brand. We continue to strive for that in our messaging.
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Linda Fox12:46
Any kind of marketing campaign that you've loved, across any channel, in travel or something really smart outside travel, that you've seen recently and thought, 'Wow, that's super smart.'
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Brett Keller12:56
There are a lot of great campaigns out there. The reality is some of them are just amplified because of the amount of money behind them. The insurance field is a good one. They put so much money behind it that they can take an above average campaign and make it feel amazing because they can amplify it so much. The real trick is can you do it without spending that kind of money?
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Linda Fox13:28
The low budget kind of storytelling.
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Brett Keller13:32
Absolutely.
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Linda Fox13:32
What's one thing that you would have liked to have achieved in your 25 years at Priceline that you have not, for whatever reason?
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Brett Keller13:43
Great question. I honestly have done everything I wanted to do. I think I have.
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Linda Fox13:55
Good. Not a lot of people will say that.
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Brett Keller13:58
I have loved my career.
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Linda Fox13:59
You've always been a super positive person about your team and the developments in the industry.
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Brett Keller14:07
Looking back, the Priceline brand is very strong in the US and in North America. We made some choices 15 years ago, even longer, to really relegate the brand to that geographic footprint. I think that was a mistake. We should have expanded the Priceline brand to become a worldwide platform because you see what happens when you have the leverage of worldwide marketing and worldwide consumer flow. The Booking.coms and Expedias of the world are leveraging that and can find great growth around the world. That was a group decision, and the outcome has been fantastic for Booking Holdings, but for the Priceline brand in particular, it would have been nice to have had some footprint overseas.
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Linda Fox15:03
When we did the CEO spotlight on Focuswire a couple of years back, I think you linked that to the fact that you maybe felt you hadn't spoken up enough or been vocal enough at the time. I seem to recall something about not being afraid to speak even if you're young and inexperienced, just speak out anyway.
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Brett Keller15:26
Absolutely. I said that because when you're younger in your career, you hold back. You have reservations and you don't believe you have the right to put a voice forward on certain topics. But that's just not the case. If you have thoughtful input on any topic or subject, you should be sharing that and making it vocal. You have to be ready to have that rejected, and that's perfectly okay as part of business. You can take the knocks.
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Linda Fox15:55
Very good. Let's wrap up here. What are you most proud of?
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Brett Keller16:01
I am most proud of surviving some of the most challenging hits that a company can take over 25 years and coming out on top, having a brand, a team, and a product that is fantastic and really adds value for consumers. That's what I'm proud of.
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Linda Fox16:19
Is this really goodbye? Goodbye to Priceline?
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Brett Keller16:23
Yes, and to Booking Holdings. But there are lots of chapters to come, I think.
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Linda Fox16:31
Hope you come back soon.
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Brett Keller16:32
I love the industry. You can't walk away completely. There are lots of ways to be involved without taking a full-time leadership role or a CEO role somewhere.
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Linda Fox16:41
Thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it.
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Brett Keller16:44
Thanks.