Travel agency | The subscription business leads eDreams to break its revenue record again when the sector is still convalescing

2023-05-25 13:26:26

“We always said that we were one travel agencybut in reality we have become a tech subscription company which turns out to sell trips”. eDreams ODIGEO closes another year of growth and good news when the travel industry In general, it has not yet fully recovered the levels it was at before the covid I would completely sink it. And she achieves it, as they have recognized this Thursday the CEO of the company, Dana Dunneand his CFO, David Elizagabecause of how well his behavior behaves prime businessa proposition that allows the customer to subscribe to the company and pay a flat rate in exchange for access to cheaper trips and other complementary services.

The Barcelona-based company closes its 2022-2023 fiscal year (which runs from April to March) with a turnover of 621 million euros (47% more than the previous year) that comes from practically half of the 4, 3 million subscribers to this ‘prime’ program (60% more than in the previous year) and which translates into a operating profit almost twice as high as the one it presented in 2022. In any case, this does not prevent the company from ending the period in red numbers again. eDreams has cut a third of its net lossbut the result is still 43 million euros in negative.

“The net benefit is going to take a bit longer, but the bottom line is that we are greatly increasing our employee base”, Elizaga has maintained. “The reality is that we have a lot of demand from customers: we know what things have to be developed for them and that requires more engineers,” explained the same manager, who took the opportunity to recall that the workforce has grown by 50% since it In November 2021 they launched this recruitment campaign and that the company currently has 140 open positions.

The goal, in the end, is to reach March 2025 with 1,500 employees (a figure that they are sure they will exceed), 7.25 million subscribers, double the EBITDA and, then yes, with net benefits.

Cheap tickets and confinement

For now, they are more than happy with how they are progressing towards this goal. “We are very satisfied with the financial results: during the last fiscal year we have reached many historical records for the company”, has valued Dunne, who has given as an example the income and the subscribersbut also the number of reservationsand the improvement of cost effectiveness. “The business is showing a lot of power: despite the fact that the industry is still below 2019, we are 7 quarters ahead in reserves,” Elizaga completed.

They relate it, above all, to this program’prime’ (“When the client sees the advantages that he has in terms of precio y Experience of customer, it doesn’t matter if it’s a traveler frequent or a person of weekend getaways from time to time”, argues the financial director), but also because the effects of the confinement are still being felt in the desire to travel since, against all odds, the plane tickets They are still cheaper than before the covid. And so, people continue to travel: according to their data, fewer days and closer (probably due to the inflation), but traveling, after all.