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On the Beach announces profits up by a third
OTA On the Beach increased its pre-tax profit by just over a third in the first six months of its financial year.
The group’s interim results for the period to the end of March 2017 show a rise of 33.8% to £9.9 million.
Group revenue was up 7.3% to £38.1 million, compared with £35.5 million in the first half of last year.
As a result the company reduced its net debt from £6.6 million to £2.3 million.
On the Beach saw almost a 10% increase in daily unique visitors to its site to 27.5 million for the first half of the year, and branded and free traffic rose to almost 57% of all traffic. As a result, the percentage spent on online marketing fell from 46% in the first half of last year to 40%.
Yesterday, the group announced that is had bought rival OTA Sunshine.co.uk for £12 million.
Chief executive Simon Cooper said performance in the second half of this year was expected to be even better.
"On the Beach has delivered a solid performance in H1, with booking growth strengthening towards the end of the period and continuing into H2," he said.
"In the Group’s AGM Trading Update, management outlined the view that H2 performance would be stronger than H1, with more favourable year-on-year comparators in H2 and because H1 was impacted by the later timing of the low cost carriers’ seat release as well as key hotel partners in the western Mediterranean holding back capacity to sell in the late market.
"All of these assumptions played out in the first half and have continued in H2. Given these market dynamics, we took a proactive decision to balance volume and revenue growth. This position remains under constant review to ensure that business performance is optimised.
"Strategically, the changing market dynamics are presenting a number of exciting opportunities for On the Beach to leverage its scale and technological capability and we are delighted to have recently completed the acquisition of Sunshine.co.uk to further strengthen our market leading position. Given the resilient and flexible nature of our business model the Board remains confident in delivering a full year result in line with management’s expectations."
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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