Welcome to Booking Holdings, formerly The Priceline Group, Fourth Quarter 2017 Conference Call. Booking Holdings would like to remind everyone that this call may contain forward-looking statements, which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual results may differ materially from those expressed, implied or forecasted in any such forward-looking statements. Expressions of future goals or expectations and similar expressions reflecting something other than historical fact are intended to identify forward-looking statements. For a list of factors that could cause Booking Holdings' actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements, please refer to the safe harbor statements at the end of Booking Holdings' earnings press release as well as Booking Holdings' most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Unless required by law, Booking Holdings undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. A copy of Booking Holdings' earnings press release, together with an accompanying financial and statistical supplement, is available in the For Investors section of Booking Holdings' website, www.bookingholdings.com. And now I'd like to introduce Booking Holdings' speakers for this afternoon: Glenn Fogel, Daniel Finnegan and David Goulden. Go ahead, gentlemen.

Thank you, and welcome to Booking Holdings' Fourth Quarter Conference Call. I'm joined this afternoon by our CFO, Dan Finnegan, in what will be his final earnings call before retiring, and David Goulden, our soon-to-start CFO, who I am pleased to welcome today, though his start date is March 1. David has an impressive background in financial and operational management at EMC and more recently as part of the Dell-EMC combined team. I am looking forward to working with David and know he will play an important role in the continued success of our company. David, welcome.

Thanks, Glenn. I'm very excited to join the Booking Holdings team and I look forward to working with you and Dan and the rest of the leadership team to first dig deep into the business to understand it as well as all of you do, and then to help drive its future success across all of its aspects. Also, I look forward to meeting many of you on the call over the coming weeks and months.

Thank you, David. I am pleased to report that Booking Holdings performed well in the fourth quarter, with worldwide accommodation reservations of 152 million room nights, which is up 17% year-over-year and exceeded the high end of our guidance range. Consolidated gross bookings were up 19% year-over-year in U.S. dollars or about 14% on a constant-currency basis. Gross profit was up 22% year-over-year in U.S. dollars or about 17% on a constant-currency basis, and adjusted EBITDA increased 23% year-over-year to $1.1 billion. I am particularly pleased with the results of our performance marketing optimization efforts during the quarter. We raised ROIs across our pay channels, improving performance advertising efficiency, whilst still delivering solid growth in bookings. We were also successful in driving growth through our direct channel, which is an important to the long-term health of our business. And I want to specifically send out a thank you to our talented marketing teams, who successfully navigated this difficult-to-predict marketplace, achieving better-than-expected results during the quarter. As we've said in the past, our efforts to drive greater efficiency in this complex and dynamic marketplace will produce strategic and financial benefits, but we still expect to face continuing long-term pressure in this area. Let me now briefly highlight a few points about our 2017 performance. It was a good year for the company. We grew our room nights by 21%, which represents over 116 million incremental room nights booked in the year. Performance in our key regions around the world was strong, and we believe we achieved market share gains in some of our major geographies, such as the United States. Moreover, we combined this top-line growth with EBITDA growth of approximately 18% and non-GAAP EPS growth of 17%, which was strong performance, considering we began to undertake some important investments in…

Thanks, Glenn. Let me start by welcoming David onboard. I'm happy we have found such a talented person to step into the role and I look forward to us working together to achieve a smooth transition. Now to the quarter. I'll discuss operating results and cash flows for the quarter and then provide guidance for the first quarter of 2018. All growth rates referenced in my comments are relative to the prior year comparable period, unless otherwise indicated. Our non-GAAP financial results and forecasts include stock-based compensation and are reconciled to our GAAP results in our earnings release. In early November when we gave guidance for Q4, we talked about a recent change we've made to optimize ROIs in our performance advertising channels. The Booking.com team did a superb job of executing this strategy, delivering performance advertising efficiency and gross bookings growth that exceeded our forecast. The strong gross bookings performance also benefited gross profit for the quarter. The result was top- and bottom-line performance that substantially exceeded our guidance and FactSet analyst expectations. Room nights booked in Q4 grew by 17%, decelerating modestly on a sequential basis, despite a very difficult prior year comp and our ROI optimization strategy. Rental car day reservations grew by 5%, consistent with the Q3 growth rate. Average daily rates for accommodations, or ADRs, were down about 1% for Q4 versus prior year on a constant-currency basis for the consolidated group, which was consistent with our forecast. Foreign exchange rates favorably impacted growth rates expressed in U.S. dollars for our Q4 results as compared to prior year. Q4 gross bookings grew by 19%, expressed in U.S. dollars and grew by about 14% on a constant currency basis. Consolidated gross profit for the fourth quarter was $2.8 billion and grew by 22% in U.S. dollars…

Thank you. Our first question comes from Eric Sheridan with UBS. You may begin.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Lloyd Walmsley with Deutsche Bank. You may begin.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Brian Nowak with Morgan Stanley. You may begin.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Douglas Anmuth with JPMorgan. You may begin. Douglas, your line is open. Please check your mute button. Our next question comes from Mark May with Citi. You may begin.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Douglas Anmuth with JPMorgan. You may begin.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Mark Mahaney with RBC. You may begin.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Justin Post with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. You may begin.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Paul Bieber with Credit Suisse. You may begin.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Kevin Kopelman with Cowen. You may begin.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Heath Terry with Goldman Sachs. You may begin.

Our last question is from Deepak Mathivanan with Barclays Capital. You may begin.

Thank you. I would now like to turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.

Thank you. I'm going to give the final word to Dan. Dan, your final word.

Thanks, Glenn. As we close my last earnings call as CFO, I'd like to thank analyst and investors for your insightful questions and interest in our company. I also want to thank my colleagues all around the world for their hard work and skill to deliver another fantastic year in a string of many amazing years of growth and profitability. It has been a wonderful experience being part of your team. I wish you all you the best. And I look forward to following your continued future success.

Thank you, Dan, and we all wish you the best. And thank you, everybody, for participating in our call.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. Thank you for your participation. Have a wonderful day