Travel Counsellors maintains momentum with record annual results
Momentum has continued for Manchester-based holidays group, Travel Counsellors, which today (July 25) revealed a record performance with increases in its Total Transaction Value (TTV) and revenues for the year ended October 31, 2023.
The results show a TTV of £941.6m, which was 31% higher than the prior year as both Travel Counsellors’ B2C and corporate businesses delivered record results.
Corporate TTV increased to £215m, with more than 79% of sales made in the premium-leisure focused B2C business.
Revenue increased by 31% to £456.6m in line with the increase in TTV, while adjusted EBITDA increased significantly, by 64%, to £32.8m.
In the 2022 financial year the firm made a pre-tax profit of £19.998m, a major turnaround from the 2021 results which contained a £10.713m pre-tax loss, following the devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the travel industry. No pre-tax profit/loss figure has been published for the 2023 figures, so far.
Steve Byrne speaks at Rainmakers 2024
At the Rainmakers conference in March 2024 chief executive Steve Byrne told delegates how Vitruvian, its private equity backers who bought a stake in the business from Equistone in 2018, have supported Byrne and continue to invest in technology with £10m scheduled to be deployed to support a now 60-strong technology team.
Continued investments have been made in building a scalable platform to support the company’s ambitious long term growth plans and to better enable travel counsellors to build lasting relationships with customers and scale their businesses.
More than 300 new travel counsellors were added over the year, both organically and through the Holidaysplease acquisition, enabling them to access the company’s proprietary digital platform and infrastructure to launch their new travel businesses. This took the company to more than 1,923 franchisees at the year end.
Ahead of the Company’s 30th birthday in 2024, Travel Counsellors was rebranded to create a new visual identity.
Today’s announcement also revealed an update for the first half of the 2024 fiscal year which has seen a 14% increase in TTV, compared with the same period in 2023.
There has also been significant growth in the travel counsellor community with 148 new travel counsellors joining in the first half, representing 23% growth against the prior year and taking the group to more than 2,000 franchisees.
Top selling destinations in the first half included trending ‘experiential’ destinations such as Thailand, Japan and Sri Lanka alongside long standing favourites such as the Middle East, Indian Ocean, USA and Mediterranean as well as cruise holidays.
In January 2024, the company further bolstered its proprietary tech stack through the strategic acquisition of the Planisto technology platform.
The integration is accelerating Travel Counsellors’ technology development plans and focus on the premium travel market by adding proven functionality that enables Travel Counsellor business owners to build highly complex travel itineraries and present these intuitively to consumers.
Travel Counsellors CEO, Steve Byrne, said: “FY23 was another record year for Travel Counsellors as we delivered significant profitable growth and strategic progress across the business.
“This positive outcome is once again a firm demonstration of the strength of our differentiated strategy and was underpinned by the record number of customers who trusted Travel Counsellors with their leisure and corporate travel needs. Our strong momentum has continued into the first six months of the current financial year with strong further double digit TTV growth.”
He added: “I am extremely confident that, underpinned by continuous investment in developing our proprietary technology, we are exceptionally well placed to further build on our significant growth over the coming years.
“We are focused on continuing to disrupt the travel market through superb, personalised service and our scalable, relevant, and differentiated business model.”
