eDreams Odigeo overcomes SEO changes, reports 2% booking growth

eDreams Odigeo reports another half year of stable results, with bookings climbing 2% year-over-year to 5.8 million in the first half of fiscal year 2020.

Adjusted EBITDA rose 9% to €57.2 million.

In a call to discuss earnings, CEO Dana Dunne notes that eDreams survived numerous headwinds in the first six months of 2019. 

“Growth in bookings has been achieved after absorbing the SEO changes introduced by Google and our own push of our Prime subscription service, which has a short-term impact of lowering booking growth,” says Dunne.

Prime subscribers, which Dunne says is a “very successful” model for the company, increased from 125,000 to 450,000. 

The Barcelona, Spain-based company grew its revenue margin 5% year-over-year to €281.2 million.

Dunne says that revenue diversification, which is up 20% year-over-year, was the “largest revenue contributor.”

There was one significant hinderance for eDreams, with its new price display feature inhibiting bookings.

Says Dunne: “As we increase price transparency, there have been some short-term impacts on traffic and the number of bookings. 

“We are confident that this short-term impact will lead to an improved performance through increased loyalty as customers return to make additional bookings, offsetting any initial impact.”

Overall, Dunn was satisfied that eDreams “delivered a solid set of first year half results.”

“I’m pleased to say that our encouraging first half year results means that we are on track to meet our full year guidance targets.”