In its second year to October 2008, UK turnover soared by 119% from £32m to £70m as it broke even, excluding some small one-off costs, while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) improved substantially.
Group managing director Graham Nichols attributed this success to support from the 4,500 UK agencies that work with youtravel.
‘More than 95% of youtravel.com’s business is transacted through the trade and this shows no sign of changing. The travel trade is our lifeblood,’ he said.
youtravel’s strategy will now turn towards achieving the same success in its international markets to diversify and spread risk.
Nichols said: ‘The focus as we end our third year and enter our fourth is to concentrate more on profit rather than such rapid growth in the UK.
‘We are, however, expecting to pursue aggressive expansion programmes in our international markets which have higher margins and huge potential.
‘We are on track to make significant profit in our third year ending October 2009 thanks to a more streamlined operation, exclusive product and a buoyant late-booking market this summer.’
Sales in June were up 18% on the same month in 2008 and July figures look to be very similar.
Barclays Ventures has been the major shareholder in youtravel.com since its launch in October 2006.
Dimitrios Tzililis, Barclays Ventures’ portfolio director, said: ‘We have been impressed by the encouraging signs of booking levels returning to, and overtaking, those of last year from May onwards.
‘We have recently appointed Niels Andersen as the new chairman of youtravel.com and together with the whole management team, we are excited by the progress made and the future potential in this scale-able and now profitable business.’
See also:
Bedbank 'trading ahead of the market' (24/06/2009)
Youtravel beach hotels available on Galileo (19/02/2009)
youtravel/easyCruise herald successful deal (11/12/2008)
Youtravel expands portfolio (12/11/2008)