Record profit result for Australian listed OTA.
Webjet has just announced a “significant strategic sourcing partnership” with European holiday operator Thomas Cook. The news came as Webjet ceo John Guscic unveiled the company’s stellar results for 2015/16, with TTV up 28.8% to $1.63 billiion and net profit after tax increasing 27% to $22.2 million.
“All businesses in both our digital retail (B2C) and digital wholesale (B2B) divisions experienced strong organic bookings growth and market share growth during the year,” he said.
Gucsic said the B2C division continues to benefit from the ongoing acceleration of bookings shifting online. “Webjet has now reported 27 months of consecutive record TTV, with bookings growth outperforming the market by more than five times, and international bookings continuing to demonstrate superior growth,” he said.
The Thomas Cook deal will see Webjet’s European online accommodation wholesale business Sunhotels take responsibility for the majority of the volume of Thomas Cook’s ‘complementary hotel business’.
Thomas Cook will transfer about 3,000 hotel contracts from across the group to Sunhotels, which will be added to the Sunhotels global inventory, with all the content provided back to Thomas Cook under the terms of the agreement.
Webjet will pay Thomas Cook £21 million for entering into the supply agreement, the transfer of hotel contracts and the implementation costs of the deal. Guscic said the deal “allows Webjet to escalate its growth profile in the dynamic European B2B market”.
More details in today’s issue of Travel Daily.