Home » News » Helloworld Q1 results up 352% as Burnes emphasises growing need for agents

11 October, 2022

Helloworld Q1 results up 352% as Burnes emphasises growing need for agents

Helloworld has unveiled its September quarter results, announcing an EBITDA of $5.3 million, a “pleasing” result, compared with its Q1 loss of $3.3 million last year.

The agency’s total transactional value (TTV) for the quarter was $561 million, up 352 per cent on the same period last year.

Revenue for the quarter was up 174 per cent on last year, totalling $29.3 million with a revenue margin of 5.2 per cent.

Australia was the highest performer, with an EBITDA of $4.6 million, followed by New Zealand with $0.5 million and the rest of the world with $0.2 million.

Wholesale was up 200 per cent on last year, as capacity continued to return domestically for hotels and tour operators and international travel continued to grow. The Australian destination management business was up by 829 per cent on last year as a result of borders opening and the company holds strong bookings for the upcoming summer period.

Helloworld’s retail business in Australia and New Zealand also showed significant growth with TTV up 395 per cent for Australia and 288 per cent for New Zealand.

Speaking at the groups AGM today, Helloworld CEO Andrew Burnes expanded upon its FY22 results and said the outlook for FY23 was positive.

“On the back of the first quarter, we are pleased to announce that we expect a continued recovery in FY23 with underlying EBITDA in the range of $22.0 million to $26.0 million, subject to no material adverse change in operating conditions impacting our business and the continued recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said.

“Our business stands ready for a continuing rebound in the demand for our services. Already we have locked in significant forward bookings and while interest rate rises will impact demand from certain demographics, we remain confident that leisure travel will remain a non-discretionary component of the household budget.

“Helloworld has a strong balance sheet, with no debt, cash reserves and substantial liquid assets. Our network of agencies has proven to be resilient and robust, despite the impact of COVID-19.

“The challenging and continuously changing environment that travellers now face has shown the benefit that comes from your local travel agent’s knowledge and service. This cannot and will never by matched or replaced by bots and algorithms.”

Looking back on FY22, Burnes said the results spoke for themselves, but it was “very important” to highlight the work of the dedicated people within the Helloworld business and in its travel agency and broker newtworks.

“Helloworld Travel successfully managed to weather the storm of COVID-19 over the last near three years,” he continued.

“From the dark days of March 2020, when we were forced to rapidly reduce our costs and our workforce, we are now seeing better days and over the last few months have been able to bring many people back into the business to manage the increased demand for our services and the services of our agency networks.

“We are very grateful for the way in which the agents in our networks, our supplier partners and our international wholesale partners have been able to maintain their businesses throughout this period of sustained lockdowns and restrictions and it is exciting to see them emerging from the COVID-19 nightmare.”

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Andrew Burnes EBITDA FY22 FY23 helloworld Q1 September quarter results total transactional value TTV