Booking Holdings is one of the largest online travel companies in the world, with $21.4 billion in revenue in 2023 and a portfolio that includes Booking.com, Priceline, Kayak, Agoda, OpenTable, and Rentalcars.com. The company is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut, with Booking.com's operational center in Amsterdam. That dual geography matters when you're planning your outreach.
The company has a formal supplier diversity program. It is not simply a checkbox operation. Their public commitments cite diverse supplier development as a component of their broader ESG framework, and spend targets flow down to the procurement teams inside each brand.
What the program covers
Booking Holdings structures supplier diversity at the corporate level, with execution happening inside individual brands. That means your pitch to Priceline's marketing team and your pitch to Booking.com's IT procurement team may go through different people, even though the same overarching policy governs both.
The program focuses on four primary spend categories:
- Information technology: software development, cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, QA and testing services
- Marketing and creative services: media buying, digital advertising, brand strategy, content production, translation and localization
- Professional services: legal, consulting, finance, HR, and staffing
- Facilities and operations: facilities management, construction, and logistics support
If your business sits in any of those categories, you have a realistic path in. The IT and marketing buckets see the most diverse supplier spend, based on what the company has communicated publicly.
Certifications they recognize
Booking Holdings follows the standard corporate supplier diversity certification framework. These are the credentials their procurement team looks for:
- MBE (Minority Business Enterprise) — issued by NMSDC and its regional affiliates
- WBE (Women's Business Enterprise) — issued by WBENC and its regional affiliates
- WOSB (Women-Owned Small Business) — federal certification through the SBA or an approved third party
- SDVOSB (Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business) — verified through SBA VOSB or VA CVE
- LGBTBE (LGBT Business Enterprise) — issued by NGLCC
- DOBE (Disability-Owned Business Enterprise) — issued by Disability:IN
Because Booking.com operates primarily out of Amsterdam, WEConnect International certification is worth pursuing if you serve European markets or want to position yourself for work with the Booking.com side of the house. WEConnect is to European corporate procurement what WBENC is to the US market. If you hold WBENC certification, WEConnect has a reciprocal recognition pathway that reduces the re-certification burden.
One practical note: NMSDC regional affiliate certifications are accepted. You do not need national-level NMSDC certification. Your regional council MBE certificate is sufficient.
How to register
Booking Holdings uses a centralized procurement portal for supplier onboarding. The entry point is their Coupa Supplier Portal instance, which is the platform the company uses for vendor management and sourcing events.
To register:
- Go to bookingholdings.com and navigate to the Suppliers or ESG section, or search "Booking Holdings supplier registration" to find the current portal link. The direct path can shift during site updates, so a targeted search is more reliable than a bookmarked URL.
- Create a Coupa supplier account if you don't already have one. Coupa accounts are reusable across multiple corporate clients, so if you've registered with another Coupa customer, your profile carries over.
- Complete the supplier profile in full. Incomplete profiles get deprioritized in sourcing events. Upload your diversity certification documentation, including the certificate itself and the expiration date.
- Select the relevant commodity codes (UNSPSC codes) that match your services. This is how their category managers filter the supplier database when running RFPs.
- Submit and wait for confirmation. Initial review typically takes two to three weeks.
After registration, you are in their supplier database. Being in the database does not guarantee sourcing events, but it makes you eligible when category managers run searches for your service area.
Events and how to get a meeting
Booking Holdings participates in several national supplier diversity conferences where their procurement team members are accessible. These are the highest-return opportunities to get face time before you are formally in a sourcing process.
WBENC National Conference — held annually in June. Booking Holdings or one of its brands typically has a presence in the corporate exhibit area. The 2024 conference was in Nashville. Check the WBENC website each spring for the current year's location and the corporate attendee list.
NMSDC Annual Conference — held in October. The 2024 conference was in Las Vegas. This is the primary event for MBE-certified businesses to engage corporate procurement teams, and travel/tech companies are consistently represented.
Disability:IN Annual Conference — held in July. Booking Holdings has expressed public commitments to disability inclusion, and the travel sector has specific accessibility product needs that make DOBE suppliers relevant to their procurement conversations.
WEConnect International events — if you are targeting Booking.com specifically, WEConnect hosts networking events in Europe and virtual events accessible from the US. The Amsterdam-based procurement team for Booking.com is more likely to be at WEConnect events than at WBENC.
At these events, your goal is a 10-minute conversation with a category manager or supplier diversity lead, not a contract commitment. Come with a one-page capability statement, a specific category pitch, and two or three relevant client references. Leave with a name, an email address, and a follow-up date.
A direct route that founders underuse: LinkedIn outreach to Booking Holdings' supplier diversity manager or the procurement leads for the specific brand you are targeting. Their org structure is visible on LinkedIn, and a cold message with a specific service category and a certification credential performs better than a generic "I'd love to connect" note.
Realistic timeline
If you start from a clean slate with no certification, budget 12 to 18 months before you close your first purchase order. Here's how that typically breaks down:
Months 1 through 4: Obtain your certification. NMSDC regional MBE certification takes 60 to 90 days after a complete application submission. WBENC WBE certification runs similar timing. If you already hold a certification, skip this block.
Month 2: Register in the Coupa supplier portal. Do this while your certification is pending; the portal will accept your application with a certification in progress.
Month 3: Identify the right conference for your certification type. Register early; corporate meeting schedules at WBENC and NMSDC fill up six to eight weeks before the conference.
Months 4 through 6: Attend one conference, collect contacts, follow up with a capability statement and a specific ask within 72 hours of the event.
Months 6 through 12: Expect one to three follow-up conversations, a possible RFI response, and potentially an RFP invitation. Travel technology procurement cycles are longer than retail or CPG. Budget cycles typically close in Q4, so Q1 and Q2 are when new supplier relationships get formalized.
Year 2: First contract engagement and proof-of-concept work.
This timeline assumes you are competitive on price and delivery. Certification gets you in the room. It does not replace capability.
First steps to take this week
Pick two actions and complete them before you move on to anything else.
First, confirm your certification status. If you hold an MBE, WBE, SDVOSB, LGBTBE, or DOBE certification that is current, you are ready to register. If your certification has lapsed or you don't hold one yet, start the application process with your regional NMSDC council or WBENC affiliate today. The clock matters because sourcing cycles don't wait for your paperwork.
Second, register in the Coupa portal. It takes about 45 minutes to complete a full profile. Do it now, before a sourcing event surfaces and you scramble to get in the system with 48 hours' notice.
If you serve the IT or marketing categories and are targeting Booking Holdings, also check the WBENC corporate member page to verify current membership status. Corporate membership status changes, and you want to know whether they are an active WBENC member before you spend conference registration fees targeting their team at a WBENC event.
The opportunity is real. Online travel is a high-spend category, Booking Holdings operates across multiple brands and geographies, and the European connection through WEConnect adds a dimension most domestic diverse suppliers ignore. The businesses that succeed here are the ones that register early, show up at the right events, and follow up with specifics.
