=Priceline Group (PCLN) changes its name to Booking Holdings (BKNG)

Priceline is rebranding to Booking Holdings Inc. It will begin trading under a new stock ticker, BKNG, beginning on February 27.

"We started 20 years ago with Priceline.com and one type of product called Name Your Own Price, a fairly niche product, and from that, we’re now the global leader doing many different things," Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel told Forbes. "So we want to make sure the parent name is aligned with all the things with we do, and it’s not just Priceline. In fact our biggest subsidiary is Booking.com by far."

Booking.com now accounts for both the majority of the company's gross bookings and operating profit, Fogel said. The travel website has more than 1.5 million properties listed and averages 1 million bookings a day, the company said. While a well-known name to many Americans, Priceline remained a very US-focused brand, and changing the name to reflect Booking.com's global appeal will reflect the company's size in the travel market, Fogel said.


Still, it's only one part of the holding group's portfolio. Beyond Priceline.com and Booking.com, the travel group also encompasses OpenTable, Kayak, Rentalcars.com and Agoda.com, an Asia-based accommodations website. The move away from the Priceline brand had been discussed as the company evolved, but the plans were only really put in motion after Fogel took the helm as CEO in January 2017.