Ocean cruise operations of Saga plc, the UK based travel to insurance services provider to those over the age of 50, remain on track to deliver the company’s earnings targets for its two high end of the market ships.
“We have already seen strong early 2023/24 bookings, representing a load factor of 42% and per diem of £325. This is on track to deliver our commitment of £40million EBITDA per ship,” Saga said in a statement.
"Following our return to service after the pandemic, our Ocean Cruise business secured strong bookings and is on track to achieve our targets for this year and next, while we also made the final preparations for our new digital Saga Travel business which has just launched the first of our new products,” CEO Euan Sutherland said in the statement.
Ocean cruise operations of the company generated positive EBITDA and cash flow in the first half of the year, supported by a load factor of 66% and a per diem of £318.
Bookings for the full year, at 18 September 2022, reflected a 74% load factor with a per diem of £319.”We are on track to achieve the 75% target load factor for 2022/23 (84% in the second half) as we return to pre-pandemic operating conditions following the removal of all temporary COVID-19 measures,” Saga said.
During the last six months, the company combined its Ocean and River Cruise teams into a single team to deliver the same service across all ships, encouraging guests to cross-sell between the two. “River Cruise to Ocean Cruise cross-sell at 31 July 2022 was 18% and vice versa was 6%. Both represent improvements year-on-year and demonstrate a tremendous opportunity moving forwards,” the company said.
Looking ahead to the second half of the year, Saga expects a continued recovery in our Cruise and Travel businesses. “We anticipate that the headwinds experienced in the first six months will recede as customer demand continues to rebuild and we are able to grow our bookings. Whilst we are mindful of the broader inflationary environment in the UK, the exposure within these businesses has been largely offset or, in the case of fuel, hedged, and at present, we are not seeing any impact to demand from our customers,” the company said.
