Stockport-based On the Beach to defy ‘difficult conditions’ with Scandinavian expansion

On the Beach Group plc, the online beach holiday retailer, has said it traded well during the last financial year against a backdrop of “difficult conditions”.

The Stockport-based firm today (October 25) said that despite the impact of terrorist attacks, the weakened pound and other factors affecting the demand for beach holidays, it managed to increase its revenue after marketing costs to £36m in the 12 months to September 30 2016, up 18% from the year previous.

On the Beach Group also increased its market share during the period, with daily unique online visitors up 13% to 61m.

In January 2015, On the Beach expanded into Sweden with the launch of eBeach. For the 2015/16 year, daily unique visitors to eBeach were up 52% to 2.3m. Cost per unique visitor, meanwhile, fell by 18%.

As a result of the website’s success, On the Beach now plans to launch its second international site, catering for holidaymakers in Norway, later in 2016.

On the Beach Group’s chief executive, Simon Cooper, said: “FY16 has been an extraordinary and unprecedented year for the travel industry.

“Amidst these difficult conditions, the group’s solid revenue and profit performance is testament to the strength and flexibility of our agile business model and this has enabled us to deliver a year of highly profitable growth.”

He continued: “In spite of the challenges faced, the group has continued to grow market share and this has been delivered by executing a simple strategy of optimising our customer proposition to increase conversion and improve margin.

“The successful execution of this strategy provides further evidence of our ability to steal market share from traditional tour operators.”

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