Hostelworld bookings pick up in summer after slow start to year
, the hostel booking group that targets millennial and Gen-Z backpackers, said its net bookings and revenues have picked up during the summer months after a slow start to the year.
Still, the Dublin-based group's net bookings were flat for the first half of the year, while the net average booking value (ABV) dipped 1 per cent to €13.40 on the same period in 2024. Net revenue was also unchanged, at €46.7 million.
'Bookings and ABV improved through the first half of the year, returning to growth in late May and continuing positive momentum into June and July,' the company said.
It said that commission rates have improved since it launched its new hostel ranking system, Elevate, in May, which has offset bed price deflation and the impact of a weaker than expected US dollar.
READ MORE
App bookings grew 11 per cent year-on-year reflecting continued progress of its social network strategy, Hostelworld said.
[
Hostelworld shares slump amid 'underwhelming' trading in first half of year
Opens in new window
]
The company's adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) fell to €7.4 million in the first half from €9.6 million. However, its closing cash position rose to €11 million from €8.2 million at the end of December.
'I am confident that the momentum generated in the first half positions us strongly to deliver on our strategic priorities and continue building the world's leading social travel platform, creating sustained value for all our stakeholders,' chief executive Gary Morrison said.
Hostelworld said in a strategy update in April that it plans to return to paying dividends this year for the first time since before the Covid-19 pandemic, as the hostel-booking group also eyes 'selective' deals to broaden its business.
It aims to return to a progressive dividend policy of 20-40 per cent of net profits, starting with an interim payment in the second half of this year.
The group reached an important milestone in 2023 when it repaid €28.8 million of high-cost loans drawn down from US specialist lender HPS Investments three years ahead of schedule. This was facilitated with the help of €17.4 million of much cheaper loans from AIB, all of which has since been paid back ahead of schedule.
The company also agreed with Revenue early last year to repay €9.6 million of warehoused taxes, racked up during the Covid-19 pandemic, over the next three years.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Journal
4 hours ago
- The Journal
'A right, not a request': Australian state seeks to enshrine work from home in law
THE PREMIER OF the Australian state of Victoria has announced plans to enshrine working from home in law, saying it should be 'a right, not a request'. Under Jacinta Allan's plan, workers would be entitled to work from home at least two days per week, if the job allows. 'We're doing that because we know what the evidence tells us – workers are more productive, it saves time for families, it saves money for families,' Allan said, launching the proposed policy at the Australian Labor Party's state conference. 'This change will mean that any worker who can reasonably do their job from home has the right to do so for at least two days a week.' Advertisement Premier of Victoria, Jacinta Allan Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo Allan said the policy would now go out for consultation with workers, employers and unions. She said it was important to 'get the details of this important change right'. Allan said the move could save the average worker $110 a week, cut congestion on roads, and keep more women in the workforce. During national elections in May, the opposition Liberal-National coalition's plan to eliminate remote work was partly blamed for its poor performance. Victoria's opposition leader, Brad Battin, said work from home arrangements had been valuable, and that he supported measures that promote better work-life balance. The measure is likely to come before the state parliament next year. In Ireland, some large employers have shown resistance to the continuation of working from home years after the pandemic has subsided. Related Reads Unions push back on AIB's plan to roll back hybrid working freedoms for staff Ireland's 'right to request' remote work law is useless - it should be overhauled Remote working: Denis O'Brien reminded us of the outdated work practices we've left behind Last month, AIB staffwere told to return to their office for three days per week as the bank seeks to phase out its full-hybrid working practice. The Financial Services' Union has labelled the change 'regressive and without justification'. AIB told The Journal that it believes employees benefit from spending time with their team and colleagues, as in-person workdays leads to 'greater collaboration, connection and innovation'. It is the second bank to change its hybrid working models in recent weeks , after Bank of Ireland has requested its employees to return to the office for eight days each month.
RTÉ News
10 hours ago
- RTÉ News
Can Trump's threatened tariffs make Russia end its war?
First it was 50 days. But that deadline hardly made the Kremlin blink. Then, earlier this week, US President Donald Trump gave Russia a new 10-day deadline to end its three-and-half-year war in Ukraine. It was a simple ultimatum from the US: sign up to a ceasefire agreement by next Friday or face 100% tariffs. A couple of weeks ago, the White House indicated that tariffs on Russia and its trading partners could be as high as 100%. Russian exports of oil and gas account for about 60% of the country's overall exports, according to various estimates. Given that the profits of Russian oil companies are taxed heavily by the Russian state, implementing such high tariffs would deny Russia much-needed revenue for its war in Ukraine. According to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, a Helsinki-based thinktank, Russia has made more than €920bn on exports of fossil fuels since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Oil exports accounted for more than €630bn during that time. The Kremlin ignored Mr Trump's first 50-day ultimatum and has done the same with the new one, simply saying that the US president's comments were "noted". True to form, Russian President Vladimir Putin has not responded directly to Mr Trump's latest ultimatum to end the war. Russia's missile strikes on Ukrainian cities during this week have also indicated that Mr Trump's new deadline has not influenced Russia's war tactics. On Thursday, Russian strikes killed 31 people in Kyiv, including five children, and on Tuesday, Russian airstrikes on a prison and hospital in the Zaporizhzhia region killed 19 people. Russian forces are continuing their slow advance along the front, claiming to have captured Chasiv Yar on Thursday. Chasiv Yar is a strategically important but destroyed town in eastern Ukraine that has been fought over for 16 months. Ukraine denied that the town had been lost. If there are any moves inside the Kremlin towards agreeing a ceasefire deal by next Friday, then its leadership is hiding it very well indeed. During the week, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia had "developed an immunity" to Western sanctions after years of being sanctioned, while other senior officials aired similar views. Many analysts agree that Russia's economy has largely weathered more than three years of Western penalties - actions that included sanctions on Russian banks, freezing their assets and excluding them from using the global system for international payments. The West also set a price cap in late 2022 of $60 per barrel on Russian maritime exports of oil. However, Russia has continued to export its oil to buyers from non-sanctioning countries through its so-called 'shadow fleet'. These are mostly aging tankers with opaque maritime histories, registered in third-party countries to circumvent sanctions. The EU's latest batch of sanctions last month - the 18th so far - aims to make it harder for Russia to transport its oil around the world by lowering the price cap to $47 per barrel and blacklisting more than 100 of the shadow fleet's vessels from docking at ports across the EU. So Mr Trump's threat to impose 100% tariffs on Russia and its trading partners is a novel move to reduce the Kremlin's ability to collect oil revenues and thereby dent its war chest. "If the US comes with secondary sanctions on Russian oil, I can't see a bolder play," Ben McWilliams, an energy expert at the Bruegel thinktank in Brussels, told RTÉ News. "It's playing all their cards and that's trying to exert maximum pressure on Russia through energy," Mr McWilliams added. China buys almost half of all Russian crude oil exports, followed closely by India. Turkey and the EU both account for about 6% each of total Russian oil exports - most Russian crude oil flowing into the EU is bought by Hungary and Slovakia via pipeline. Russia also sells smaller volumes of oil to other markets including Myanmar, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Pakistan and Venezuela. The loss of revenue from those smaller markets is surmountable for Russia. However, a reduction in Chinese or Indian imports of the commodity would deny the Kremlin vital revenue for its war. Last year, China's level of Russian crude oil imports reached a record high of 108 million tonnes, according to data from China's national customs authority. Those imports account for about 20% of all Chinese oil consumption and are estimated to be worth about $62bn in 2024, based on analysis by the Centre of Eastern Studies in Warsaw and MERICS, a Berlin-based thinktank that focuses on China. In April, after the Trump administration imposed 145% tariffs on Chinese imports, Beijing hit back with high 110% tariffs of its own on US goods. A truce has been in place between Washington and Beijing since May, with the US reducing its tariffs to 30% and China to 10%. Statements from senior Chinese officials earlier this week suggest Beijing is unlikely to yield to pressure from Washington to stop buying Russian oil. "China will take energy supply measures that are right for China based on our national interests," Guo Jiakun, spokesperson for China's foreign affairs ministry, told reporters. Tariff wars have no winners. Coercion and pressuring cannot solve problems," he added. India might be more likely to reconsider reducing the amount of Russian oil it buys, if faced with 100% tariffs. On Friday, the US hit India with 25% tariffs on its imported goods - just one of many countries whose goods are to be levied by the US as part of Mr Trump's plan to, as he sees it, address US trade imbalances with other countries. The $60 price cap in late 2022 drove down the price of Russian oil exports, leading India to buy up much larger quantities of the stuff than it did before the war - it now buys more than two million barrels of oil a day from Russia, equivalent to about 2% of the world's total supply. Russian crude oil now accounts for about 35% of India's oil imports. Those purchases were valued at an estimated $50bn last year, according to India's government data, sourced by Reuters. New Delhi's reaction to the 25% levies has been to engage in trade talks. Mr Trump has also threatened to impose additional economic penalties on India for trading with Russia. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this week that India's purchase of Russian oil was "a point of irritation" so it looks like the US sees India's heavy reliance on Russian oil as a deal breaker in their overall trade talks. A number of Indian state oil refineries stopped buying Russian oil in the past week, buying more oil from Gulf States instead, an indication that American pressure is working. Reduced oil exports to India would force Russia to find substitute markets to make up for the shortfall. "Russia could still manage to get many barrels to market. You could still imagine small markets, each taking 50,000 barrels or something," Mr McWilliams said. "The question would be, at what price," he added, pointing to the cheaper price that buyers from India and China paid for Russian oil after European demand all but disappeared in 2022. If India and another big economy such as Turkey stop buying Russian oil, then buyers in other markets might have more leverage to offer lower prices for Russian crude, he argued. Turkey is the world's largest importer of Russian oil products such as diesel, heating oil and jet fuel. However, Turkey has also played a key role recently in US efforts to broker a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine. Turkish diplomats have mediated three brief face-to-face meetings between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in Istanbul since May. Unleashing 100% tariffs on Turkey for buying Russian oil would jeopardise Turkey's eagerness to work alongside the US as a mediator. Turkey, a NATO member, is also one of the few countries that Russia views as an acceptable mediator. Mr Trump's threat of 100% tariffs is unlikely to sway Russia to stop its war immediately, nor in the weeks ahead. The Kremlin has been quite clear that it plans to weather new sanctions. Imposing high tariffs on China for trading with Russia could also set off a new, all-out trade war between Beijing and Washington. But tariffs could force India and a number of other smaller economies that buy Russian oil imports to buy elsewhere and that lost revenue would dent the Russian state's war economy in the months ahead. The big unknown factors are whether Mr Trump will follow through on his tariff threats and whether Mr Putin might yet come up with a diplomatic ploy to delay them.
Irish Times
11 hours ago
- Irish Times
One Night in Dublin ... with the bouncers at Copper Face Jacks: Once you're gone, you're gone
The Coppers bouncers see the dodgy man early and eye him as he snakes his way up the queue to the main door of Ireland's most famous nightclub. Before the middle-aged man in the tan leather jacket has any real notion of what's going on, the crash barriers part just wide enough for him to be ushered away from the entrance. He sways gently in the warm Saturday night breeze, his momentary confusion quickly replaced by annoyance. His protestations of sobriety – a bit too loud and a bit too indignant – fall on deaf ears as disinterested bouncers turn away. The scene is repeated occasionally outside Copper Face Jacks on a Saturday summer night but the security staff handle the odd drunk calmly and with little fuss. Once you're gone, you're gone – and protestations are stonewalled with a firm: 'Sorry, it's not happening.' READ MORE As the man in the tan jacket weaves away, a group of laughing young women in Dublin GAA jerseys carrying a small silver cup rock up. They're exuberant but sober(ish) and get to skip the queue when Cathal Jackson, the Coppers King, hears they're All-Ireland winners. Cathal Jackson, owner of Copper Face Jacks, with captain Aoife Deegan and Meadhbh Hicks of the Dublin under-23 camogie team. Photograph: Conor Pope Despite the fact that Coppers has made Jackson a millionaire many times over – it was nearly sold seven years ago for €40 million, andits cloakroom alone makes him a reported annual profit of more than €250,000 – the almost 70-year-old former garda from the midlands still stands at the door four nights a week watching folk file past his team of seasoned bouncers. [ From the archive: Copper Face Jacks reports surge in profits after pandemic lockdown rules lifted Opens in new window ] It's far from all this he was reared. On a leave of absence from the guards, this son of a garda, took a punt on an unfashionable street in Dublin 2 in early 1996. 'It was quiet enough for the first six weeks or so but after that it took off and it never really stopped,' he says, as the bag of chips bought for his dinner goes cold. There was a perception always that it was country people, guards and nurses who went to Coppers but its much more cosmopolitan now — Aidan McCormack The secret seems obvious now but it wasn't then. Coppers focused as much on Mondays and Tuesdays as on weekends and became hugely popular with weekend workers including – famously – guards and nurses. And it never got too hung up on being cool or exclusive. The music was always popular and familiar, and the craic was always 90. People went to Coppers to dance and to laugh and for the odd shift. By 12.30am the queue is long and the dance floors heaving. A couple in their 40s mill the faces off each other at the bar but pretty much everyone else seems happy to dance. It's not a place for heavy drinking, with the average spend per punter less than €20 or three pints of lager. Jackson's happy with that. He doesn't want messy drunks in his club; they cause more trouble than they're worth. Managing the staff is Aidan McCormack, a Coppers lifer who celebrates his 30th anniversary on the door next February. He likes working in what he says is the most famous nightclub in Ireland. 'It's known all over the world. There was a perception always that it was country people, guards and nurses who went to Coppers but its much more cosmopolitan now,' he says. What are the most important things to remember when working the door? 'We want people to say they had a good night,' he says. 'But the first thing people have to be is the proper age and they can't be intoxicated.' As he speaks, five lads shuffle up a bit too sheepishly. Almost everyone going to Coppers has their ID checked and this group is no exception. Of the five, one 18-year-old boy is refused. He looks heartbroken but his buddies rally round and they leave together, laughing. When it's pointed out to McCormack that most people going into a nightclub at midnight have drink taken, he acknowledges the point. 'We show common sense,' he says. 'You see those two steps at the doorway,' he adds, pointing downwards. 'They're very handy and if people can't manage them it's a sign, for sure.' Dublin Camogie players at the top of the queue heading into Coppers. Photograph: Conor Pope The bouncers don't just rely on the two-steps, though. 'We've layers of security as people come through,' McCormack continues. 'One looks at your face straight on and another watches as you walk past and then a third will cast an eye over you. You might get past one doorman, but you're not going to get past three of us. 'But we're not really here to refuse people. We're just here to make sure that no one is too young or likely to cause trouble.' Noel Holloway has been on the door for 18 years, while Michael Burke, standing beside him, has been here for 13 years. They're smiley rather than stony-faced and laugh and joke through the night. When Holloway is asked what the biggest challenges in his job are he doesn't skip a beat. 'It's working with these Muppets,' he says. As he talks, his eyes never leave the queue. 'We know people come with fake IDs so we sometimes ask to see a bank card to confirm names match,' he says. He pauses. 'But a lot of young people don't carry bank cards so we ask to see their social media accounts to be sure. But even then a lot of young ones have fake social media accounts to match the names on their fake ID. It can be tricky,' he says. Across from Coppers are two relaxed guards. 'This street is self-policing in some ways,' one says. 'All the nightclubs, but particularly Coppers, are well run. There's very little messing and the security staff know what they're doing. They've been doing it long enough anyway.' It's 1am and the queue is long. When Jackson is asked what he looks for in a bouncer he says first what he doesn't want – excessive physicality. 'It's much more important that we can talk people down,' he says. A young woman approaches and asks for paracetamol. She's ushered to the on-site medical room to be seen by the paramedic. Minutes later somebody else comes out and says she has a headache. She too is taken care of. Jackson shrugs when The Irish Times expresses amazement that people ask bouncers for painkillers and are looked after. Copper Face Jacks: 'All the nightclubs, but particularly Coppers, are well run,' says one of the gardaí on Harcourt Street. Photograph: Aidan Crawley 'It's what we do anyway,' he says. Minutes pass and a young woman wanders out lost and disorientated. Discreetly Jackson tells staff to make sure she isn't alone. 'We'd never leave a young woman out here on her own,' he says. The girl, it emerges, has pals to take care of her so the night goes on. By 2am more than 1,000 people are inside; it has a capacity of between 1,400 and 1,700 depending on which areas are opened up – and the mood is exuberant. The doors must close and the punters must be sent home by 2.30am. It infuriates Jackson who repeatedly expresses bafflement that the licensing laws in the State have yet to be updated to allow people if they so wish to dance later into the night. [ From the archive: Just how did Ireland end up with such weird licensing laws? Opens in new window ] 'We are not the same as the late bars so it makes no sense to me that we have to work under the same rules,' he says. 'People certainly aren't drinking as much as they used to,' he adds. 'Some are using other stimulants. There's a lot more cocaine around the city.' But he says there is a very strict policy when it comes to cocaine in Coppers. 'We have a zero-tolerance policy on that,' he says as the craic-fuelled dancing goes on behind him, with Sunday morning probably feeling like a long, long way away for the Coppers clubbers. Next in the 'One Night in Dublin' series - a night at the museum; a noctural walkabout at IMMA - on Tuesday
