Travelzoo (NASDAQ:TZOO) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Travelzoo (NASDAQ:TZOO) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript April 24, 2024

Travelzoo beats earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $0.3101, expectations were $0.29. TZOO isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).

Operator: Thank you for standing by. My name is Krista, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Travelzoo First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to Lijun Qi, Principal Accounting Officer. You may begin your conference.

Lijun Qi: Thank you, operator, and welcome to those of you joining us today. Please refer to the management presentation to follow along with our prepared remarks. The presentation in PDF format is available on our Investor Relations site at travelzoo.com/ir. Let’s begin with Slide #4. Travelzoo’s revenue, operating profit and member count all increased year-over-year. Our consolidated Q1 revenue was $22.0 million, up 2% from $21.6 million in the prior year. In constant currency, revenue was $21.8 million, an increase of 1% year-over-year. Operating income, which weigh as management core operating profit, increased 19% year-over-year. Q1 operating profit was $5.6 million or 25% of revenue, up from $4.7 million in the prior year.

As of March 31, 2024, we had 31.0 million unduplicated members, compared to 30.5 million as of March 31, 2023. Slide 5 shows that revenue growth in our Europe segment more than offset a slight decline in North America. On Slide 6, we break down our categories of revenue: advertising, membership fees and other. Advertising revenue increased 1% year-over-year to $20.9 million from the prior-year period. Revenue from membership fees increased 16% year-over-year to $1.1 million from the prior-year period. On a consolidated level, we expect revenue from membership fees to grow over time. During 2024, membership fees have been made for legacy Travelzoo members. Slide 7 shows an example of membership fee revenue recognition. Revenue from membership fees is recognized ratably over the period of the subscription.

Member acquisition costs, on the other hand, are recognized in full at the time of the expense. On Slide 8, you can see that our GAAP operating margin increased to 25% in Q1 2024. Slide 9 shows that in North America, the GAAP operating margin remained high at 31% for Q1 2024. On Slide 10, we provide information on non-GAAP operating profit as we believe it better explains how Travelzoo’s management evaluates financial performance. Q1 2024 non-GAAP operating profit was $6.0 million. That’s 27% of revenue compared to non-GAAP operating profit of $5.5 million in the prior-year period. Slide 11 provides information about the items that excluded in the calculation of non-GAAP operating profit. Please turn to Slide 12. We maintained a solid cash position even after repurchasing 400,000 Travelzoo shares during the quarter.

As of March 31, 2024, consolidated cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash was $16.9 million, an increase of $476,000 from December 31, 2023. Comparably, merchant payables, which are future payments that we have to make to partners when vouchers are redeemed, decreased by $2.8 million over the same period. Slide 13 shows how revenues compared to operating expenses. Most of the company’s operating expenses, except for marketing, are relatively fixed in the short to midterm. We believe we can keep fixed costs relatively low in the foreseeable future. Higher revenues would adjust increase operating margin. For Q2 2024, we expect continued growth in revenue year-over-year, albeit at a slower pace than in 2023. We also expect for Q2 2024 higher profitability year-over-year.

We recognizemembership fee revenue ratably over the subscription period. Legacy Travelzoo members as of December 31, 2023 are exempt from the fee during 2024. Therefore, we do not anticipate generating membership fee revenue from these members before 2025. Now, I turn the discussion over to Holger.

Holger Bartel: Thank you, Lijun. We will continue to leverage Travelzoo’s global reach, our trusted brand and strong relationships with top travel suppliers to negotiate more exclusive offers for members. It is in times of large increases in travel prices that Travelzoo is most valuable for consumers. Travelzoo members enjoy a high-quality travel experiences that represent outstanding value. With more than 30 million members, 8 million mobile app users and 4 million social media followers, Travelzoo is loved by travel enthusiasts, who are affluent, active and open to new experiences. Slide 15 provides more information about Travelzoo members. 91% say they are open to new destinations and travel ideas. We are the club of travel enthusiasts.

Slide 17 provides an overview of what management and our global team are focused on. We want to grow the number of Travelzoo members. We want to leverage strong existing relationships with top travel suppliers and add new relationships to negotiate more exclusive offers, utilize higher operating margins to increase EPS, grow Jack’s Flight Club’s profitable subscription revenue and develop Travelzoo META with discipline. At this point, I’d like to turn over to Christina for an update on both Jack’s Flight Club and Travelzoo META.

Christina Ciocca: Thank you, Holger. In Q1, Jack’s Flight Club subscription revenue increased 16% year-over-year to $1.1 million. The number of premium subscribers increased 11% year-over-year. In 2024, we want to keep up this momentum with continued investment in member growth, including in new markets like Canada, further refine Jack’s Flight Club’s strong value proposition and optimize marketing. Now I’d like to speak about Travelzoo META. We are making progress with the production of the first Metaverse travel experience. It will be browser-enabled. As stated in previous earnings calls, we’re conscious of developing Travelzoo META in a financially disciplined way. We will provide additional updates in due time. I’m now handing over to the operator for questions for Holger, Lijun and me.

See also 15 Best Places to Retire in Maryland and 11 Hot Growth Stocks To Buy Right Now.

Q&A Session

Operator: Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Michael Kupinski from Noble Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Michael Kupinski: Thank you, and thanks for taking my questions. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about Jack’s Flight Club. Where is the growth coming from? Is it coming from mostly North America in terms of the number of subscribers? And then, of that growth, how many of those new subscribers are actually paid subscribers? And I was just wondering if you can kind of give us a little color on the growth there.

Christina Ciocca: Sure, I can take that question. We have been investing more into member acquisition in the US specifically over the past quarter and year. So, a lot of the growth is coming from the US, but we still see significant member acquisition in the UK. It’s our largest market and continues to be our largest market. But we’re starting to see the US creep up a bit more to be a larger proportion of our paying members. And in general, we have been increasing our premium subscriber numbers year-over-year, as we said, and it’s a proportion — it’s becoming a larger proportion of our free members, but we don’t disclose the exact number of the premium subscribers at this time.

Michael Kupinski: And the next question is, in terms of Europe versus the United States or North America, obviously, you had some disparity in the performance. I was just wondering, what is driving the growth in Europe, first? And then, what do you see happening in the United States? And maybe if you could just give us some color on the current market environment in both continents?

Holger Bartel: Sure. Look, Michael, we said that Europe is catching up after COVID a little bit more slowly than North America. That’s exactly what we are seeing now. We’re still seeing good growth in Europe. We’re not happy that revenues in North America came in lower this quarter than last year. But look, advertising revenues always fluctuate and there’s different reasons. Sometimes, offers from advertisers are not that strong. We don’t feel comfortable recommending them to our members, then we lose some advertising revenue. But look, overall, we do not want to compromise on content quality and offer quality. That’s most important to us. Sometimes advertisers reduce their spend temporarily or even put it on hold. So, we had a couple of advertisers partners that are revamping their website, changing them.

So, they put their advertising campaigns on hold temporarily while they are changing their strategy. But that’s why we are now transforming to add subscription revenue to the revenue mix, because this will increase revenues overall and also make them more stable, because subscription revenue is something that will not fluctuate as much from one quarter to the next.

Operator: Your next question comes from James Goss from Barrington Research. Please go ahead.

James Goss: Okay, thank you. Just to go on a little with that, Holger, so the reason for the slippage in North American revenues was fewer deals being advertised to the client base, and that’s primarily the reason for the North American revenue slippage?

Holger Bartel: What I said, Jim, it’s a whole bunch of reasons and they all come together, and that’s why advertising revenues fluctuate, and that’s why revenues came in lower in North America than the previous year. But as I said, there’s a few different reasons. Sometimes it’s advertising partners who just put their campaigns on hold for a quarter or two. So, as I said, there’s lots of different reasons.

James Goss: Okay. I think the guidance also pointed to better profitability again in the second quarter, I think — believe in both North America and Europe, but it didn’t mention revenues. Well, are you thinking revenues are still going to be fairly sluggish, particularly in North America in the current quarter?

Holger Bartel: Our press release and Lijun said, I believe, that we are expecting in Q2 revenues to also grow versus the prior year, but not as quite as the same rate as we saw in 2023.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Steve Silver from Argus Research. Please go ahead.

Steve Silver: Good morning, and thanks for taking my question as well. Holger, I was hoping to talk a little bit about the balance sheet. It looks like the balance sheet is continuing to make improvements. And it looks like the company might be on the verge of reclaiming a net positive cash position compared to the merchant payables as early as next quarter. And you mentioned that the company did buy back shares in the most recent quarter. Just trying to get your current thinking on the use of cash in an environment where the company is well funded. Just trying to get a sense as to whether the mix will start to shift towards using capital for some growth initiatives like META. Just trying to get your overall thoughts in terms of use of cash as the balance sheet continues to improve.

Holger Bartel: Yes, Steve, we are happy with the improvement in the balance sheet. Merchant payables are probably now at the level where they will remain quite stable over the next few quarters, which should be positive for operating cash flow. So, we expect this to go higher over the next few quarters. Now, use of cash, we used in the last year, some of it for share repurchases, that was attractive. The share count has gone down quite a bit. We are, of course, always looking at opportunities to acquire, whether it’s parts of businesses like we acquired a couple of times, membership deals from other companies, also looking to see if there are opportunities to acquire competitors that are not doing that well. And lastly, we’re in this transition now to a club model with a paid membership. And we also believe that at some point of time, we will increase our marketing spend, member acquisition spend in order to drive that growth.

Steve Silver: Okay. Great. Thank you for the extra color.

Operator: Your next question comes from Ed Woo from Ascendiant Capital. Please go ahead.

Ed Woo: Yeah, thank you for taking my question, and congratulations on the quarter. My question is, as we’re approaching the summer travel season, what are you seeing out there both in Europe and the US in terms of the consumers as well as the suppliers or how they feel the summer travel season is going to be?