On the Beach cautious in run-up to Brexit deadline
On the Beach is cautious about the impact of Brexit uncertainty on consumers in next few months despite a rise in revenue in the four months to the end of January.
Giving a trading update today, chief executive Simon Cooper said: "The first four months of the new financial year has delivered another solid period of growth for the Group. Our strategy of investing in our brands, talent and technology to drive growth has delivered performance in line with the Board’s expectations, with both new and repeat customers attracted to our wide range of value for money beach holidays.
"Whilst we remain cautious of the consumer environment in the period immediately prior to the 29th March, the Board remains confident in the Group’s outlook and will continue to evaluate opportunities to enhance its market share position."
The online travel agent, which is due to hold its AGM today, said UK revenue has risen 20% in the four months.
"We are pleased to see the continuation of several long term trends, most notably strong mobile traffic and conversion growth, strong branded share and repeat purchase supported by incremental offline marketing activity and an increasingly efficient online marketing spend," it said.
"We also continue to make good progress directly sourcing hotels and driving an increasing proportion of sales into our top selling and more exclusive hotel product."
It said plans to expand long hauls sales have made ‘significant progress’ including a new partnership with Emirates.
Following the acquisition of Classic Collection Holidays last August it will continue to work on the development of an online agent-only booking portal, Classic Package Holidays.
It plans to launch this in March 2019 with a phased rollout across the rest of the year.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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