Friction still exists in travel, and we are on a quest to go even further to make the entire experience - from planning to staying and beyond - even easier with technology.

Employing women is good for business.

There's no point being at the airport longer than needed.

Japan is a very important market for us and has grown remarkably as one of the most popular travel destinations in the world.

Eventually, people should just say 'give me the best hotel in a certain date in a certain location.'

With any previous transition we made with technology, it hasn't been the case that we need less people.

If you look around Booking.com, it's a very gender-balanced company.

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.

I think companies need to take more ownership over the gender gap themselves because if everybody does that, then overall, it will improve.

As CEOs or board members, women are still underrepresented, and that gap is actually growing.

Booking.com is one of the biggest translation companies in the world.

Travel is a combination of the personal and the emotional.

Booking travel is not like shopping or groceries or booking a restaurant. It's much less frequent, so understanding what works just takes a lot more time.

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.

Tech is a key driver of social and economic change, and around the world, women like me are transforming businesses, industries, and communities.

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.

There is a misperception among job seekers that opportunities for women in tech exist only for those with coding or engineering experience. To be sure, technology firms do need women with these skills, but they also need women with expertise in other areas, like marketing and finance.

As a company powered by technology and digital innovation, Booking.com believes strongly in ensuring equal access and opportunity for all within the technology sector.

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.

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.

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.

We have built out the diversity of our product teams, and we saw the caliber of our testing and experimentation improve significantly.

We found we were able to create better, customer-centric product features more quickly with a more diverse product team.

We will invest more into China to make sure that our brand gets more known to Chinese customers.

China's domestic travel is increasing, and that's why we are building our teams here in China.

We want to make sure that we have the right products for Chinese people.

I'm a master at getting as much in a day as possible.

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.

If you run a global business, it's so important that you understand what happens in each place, and you can't do that remotely. I don't want to go anywhere and leave and not have seen the people who work for us. That doesn't feel good.

I travel very light. I never want to check a bag. My only standards are a few sets of clothes, my white sneakers, my blue backpack, and my laptop. I don't have any special things otherwise.

Traveling changes you as a person. If you buy something, it's so different than if you put your money into traveling.

Traveling is an experience that you can always carry with you. It makes the world come together more so we understand each other better.

And as a woman, you need to take risks. Don't stay too long in your own swim lane.

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.

If you're afraid of failure or getting it wrong, you'll never truly innovate or disrupt the market.

Many people think we are a technology company, but we are totally customer-led.

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.

I found the Internet really fascinating.

The mission of Booking is to empower people to experience the world. Whatever people want to do, wherever they want to go, they can book it with us.

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.

There are a few books I can recommend, but one you should read for sure is 'Do More Faster,' a book full of advice for young entrepreneurs. Looking back at the early days of Booking.com, I recognize a lot of things that feature in this the book - like 'fail fast, learn quickly.'

Booking.com started with just a website, but we've always thought of our company as being more than just a website.

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.

Using science to tell us what customers are looking for is second nature for us here.

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.

When you start very young and you start to work, you're going to fail. That's how you learn.

I don't think there's ever a wrong answer as long as people are willing to learn, share. You're never done learning.

Technology's great, but you can only be as good in technology as your people are.

For me, it's about taking things that do not take a lot of space. Don't take a lot of shoes. I tend to pack a lot of dresses, for instance, because they take up less space.

We wanted to go much bigger than anybody else. That's why we've targeted so many countries.