On The Beach Group PLC (LON:OTB) will publish half-year results on Tuesday as the wider travel sector makes headlines amid a rush of holiday bookings in recent days.
Last week reports emerged that the government was ready to jettison its 14-day coronavirus quarantine rule for travel to and from certain locations, with more details and an official announcement on “air bridge” arrangements with several European countries coming this week.
Tour operator On The Beach, which will release results for the six months to March 31, took a relatively softer hit than its peers during the pandemic thanks to its online-only model.
However the results are expected to include a £35mln charge as it was forced to reverse bookings made for the summer.
However, house broker Peel Hunt still expects a “small” headline profit with £4mln of adjusted underlying earnings (EBITDA).
“We believe that an investment has been made in making it easier and quicker to integrate additional airlines,” analysts commented.
“We will also be interested in management’s comments on plans for accelerating marketing spend once it appears that consumers have returned to booking holidays.”
Over the weekend, OTB was one of many that reported a big pick-up in inquiries.
Simon Cooper, chief executive of On the Beach, told the Guardian the company had seen a “significant increase” in last-minute searches and bookings for countries expected to be included in the air bridge scheme, albeit from a previous low base of sales the month before.
UK recession data
Also on Tuesday, there will be Nationwide house price data and the Office for National Statistics will publish the final gross domestic product numbers for the first quarter of 2020.
This is expected to confirm a 2% decrease for the quarter before the full onset of the coronavirus in Britain compared to the fourth quarter of last year, with Q1 down 1.6% versus the same period last year.
However, this GDP number is behind the times, with April’s figure some 25% below its January 2020 peak and economists think May will be down around 20%.
“The collapse in activity has been particularly large partly because the UK is more reliant than other European countries on services and working parents, many of whom have had to leave the labour market,” said economist Samuel Tombs at Pantheon Macroeconomics.
“But the government’s botched response to the virus—the failure to lockdown early and to shield care homes—has meant that the lockdown has been lifted more gradually than in other countries.
“Daily indicators suggest the economy now is recovering quickly, though a fully-fledged V-shaped recovery remains unlikely.”
Significant announcements expected on Tuesday 30 June:
Finals: Aseana Properties Ltd (LON:ASPL), Catenae Innovation PLC (LON:CTEA), Civitas Social Housing PLC (LON:CSH), D4t4 Solutions PLC (LON:D4T4), Solid State PLC (LON:SOLI), Sysgroup PLC (LON:SYS)
Interims: On The Beach Group PLC (LON:OTB), Cloudcoco Group PLC (LON:CLCO),
Economic data: UK GDP, US Chicago PMI, US consumer confidence