Half Year 2024 Hostelworld Group PLC Earnings Call Transcript
Key Points
- Net bookings increased by 9% year over year, with a notable rise in solo travelers and a strong preference for lower-cost destinations.
- The social strategy has been effective, reducing marketing costs as a percentage of net revenue from 51% to 45%, contributing to a 23% growth in net margin.
- App bookings grew by 20% year over year, now accounting for 45% of total bookings, indicating successful customer engagement through the app.
- Operating expenses decreased by 2% year over year, demonstrating effective cost management despite increased booking volumes.
- The company fully repaid its AIB debt two years ahead of schedule, improving its balance sheet and reducing interest costs.
- Average Booking Value (ABV) contracted by 10% due to a shift towards lower-cost destinations and shorter stays by solo travelers.
- Revenue growth was limited to 1% year over year, impacted by the decline in ABV.
- Oceania was the only region to see a contraction in bookings, with a shift towards more short-haul travel.
- Generated revenue was down 2% year over year, reflecting the impact of lower-cost destination preferences.
- The company still has EUR7.5 million outstanding in warehoused debt to the Irish Revenue, indicating ongoing financial obligations.
Good morning, everyone. My name is Gary Morrison. I'm delighted to host our 2024 interim results this morning. I'm joined by Caroline Sherry, our CFO. And just to note, we will be taking questions at the end of the presentation, but obviously, please feel free to submit those during the presentation, and we will collect and answer those at the end.
So if we turn to the next slide, please. These are the usual disclaimers. I will take these as read. Moving on to highlights, and indeed the following page. So I'm going to start today by discussing our financial results in the context of the customer trends that we've seen year over year, our social strategy performance, what we've done on OpEx and then finally what we have done with our operating cash flow this year.
So I'm going to anchor you in the top left-hand corner of 3.7 million net bookings, which is 9% greater than first half '23. And the first customer trend to highlight is a slight mix shift towards solo travelers. So net bookings from our solo
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