Beyond the press releases and public appearances by Booking Holdings executives, what was really going on at Booking.com’s Amsterdam headquarters behind closed doors – including during monthly Freaky Fridays booze-fests?
The Machine, a 2021 novel by three Dutch investigative reporters from the NRC newspaper, tells the story. The Machine, originally published in Dutch has been little discussed in English-language media. It is now being adapted as a fictional TV series on a Dutch Public Broadcasting Channel.
Stijn Bronzwaer recently told Skift, “Booking is among the few European tech firms that have become global successes.” Everyone knows about the website but nobody knows who the people are behind the company. It was time to reconstruct a piece of Internet history. Merijn Rengers and Joris Koopman were the other authors.
The book refers to Skift’s oral history on Booking.com published in 2016 but its reporting is much more in-depth. The book details Booking.com’s history, from its founding in Amsterdam in 1996 to the tensions between American and Dutch workers and then between Dutch and Brits. It also takes you behind closed door where one CEO is fired and another forced to resign.
Bronzwaer explained that Booking Holdings had fact-checked this book when they learned it was being written prior to publication. Booking Holdings didn’t comment on the entire book, but did not dispute key findings.
The Machine: Highlights
Gillian Tans, CEO of Booking.com, was terminated on June 20, 2019.
Gillian Tans was the CEO of Booking.com, and one of the most prominent female executives working in the online travel industry. She was also a member of the Dutch Mafia, a group of employees that the book refers to as an informal term.
