Conference is now being recorded.
Great. Just turning to Slide three on the agenda for this morning. As per previous results presentations that we've conducted with you, the structure will be no different. I'll provide an overview of the year via a business update of the business. Owen will do a deeper dive into the financial results of the company for the financial year. I'll close the segment by giving an update on strategy trading update for the month of July, and also how we're seeing the outlook for the remainder of the half. Of course, at the end of that, we're always happy to take questions and answers. Turning now to Slide five on business update.
I'm really pleased to report this morning that EXP has enjoyed its strongest trading year since the onset of the pandemic in the second half of FY 2020, with the business enjoying particularly strong trading volumes. When we look across or look back across the year, there are four major standouts that we'd like to highlight this morning. Firstly, with the continued improvement in market conditions, with good domestic volumes and growing inbound volumes in key geographies, of course, a key to continued easing of labor pressures across our business. Secondly, our portfolio continues to improve, driven by the diversification of the business, particularly in the Adventure Experiences segment, we are pleased with our ability to maintain strong direct-to-customer sales relationships and improve yield across the businesses.
Thirdly, we've seen a continued growth of the inbound opportunity for both Australia and also in New Zealand. In particular, the announcement of the removal of the final barriers for travel by Chinese consumers to both Australia and New Zealand, as well as an improvement in the ratio of holiday arrivals to visiting friends and relative arrivals in the month of June. Finally, and very importantly, our investment in organic and inorganic growth across our Wild Bush Luxury, Treetops Adventure, and Skydive Australia segments.
Turning to Slide six on financial highlights, while Owen will take you a deeper dive on the financials of the business for FY23, I'm pleased to report that consistent with our trading update in late July, around Q4, our business recorded revenues of AUD 108.6 million, an underlying EBITDA of AUD 11.3 million, and a net loss after tax of AUD 500,000. As at 30 June, our balance sheet had AUD 8.6 million in cash and AUD 6.8 million in net debt. As Owen will outline, the result was primarily driven by the Adventure Experiences segment, at AUD 13.5 million underlying EBIT, EBITDA, up from AUD 5.6 million in FY22.
A vast improved contribution from our Skydive business segment at $4.1 million in underlying EBITDA, versus a $2.1 million underlying loss in FY 2022. Turning to Slide seven on the inbound recovery, before I hand over to Owen to go through the financial results of the business, I think it's very important for us to reiterate just where the Australian visitor economy's journey is on towards a full recovery towards pre-pandemic levels. As we've noted before, this is a key part of Experience Co's journey towards recovery and FY19 earnings capacity. Pleasingly, Tourism Australia and the ABS report that our recovery continues in line with expectations. Overarching aviation capacity into Australia is back at 86% of pre-pandemic levels.
This is without a material improvement from markets such as China, also with still reduced capacity from key inbound markets from the UAE, and also in Singapore. We are also seeing continued growth in and recovery in overall visitor arrivals relative to FY19, as well as the recovery of the visiting friends and relatives in holiday arrival segments into the country. Importantly, within this statistic in June, the month of June, we saw a continuation of the holiday arrivals segment exceeding the VFR segment, with 40% of all arrivals in June being for holidays to Australia versus 36% for VFR. In particular, still maintaining scope for growth from key source markets and also important markets for Experience Co of China, Japan, and also the United States.
With that, I'd now like to hand over to Owen to provide you with an overview of the financial results of the business for financial year 2023.
Thank you, John, and thank you all for joining us this morning. As John mentioned, the FY23 results are consistent with the 27 July trading update released to the ASX. In what has been the strongest period since the emergence of the pandemic, volumes were overwhelmingly the key driver towards revenue, almost doubling FY22 to AUD 108.6 million. Pleasingly, net loss after tax, contracting to AUD 500 million, primarily on the back of the operating leverage coming through EBITDA in the year and underlying EBITDA up to AUD 11.3 million, on the back of a AUD 2.4 million loss in the corresponding line in FY22.
Just turning to the P&L, we did see margins in the second period be slightly impacted by investments in the staffing shortages, and we are seeing those shortages and inflationary pressures ease certainly towards the back end of the period. In relation to the profit and loss in this period, we do have one thing that I'd like to draw to your attention. While loss before tax did improve to close to breakeven, it did include a net increase of AUD 2.7 million in net terms attributable to the accounting recognition arising from the revaluation of the aircraft. We were delighted to see an overall revaluation increase based on independent valuations of AUD 9 million in the balance sheet, of which AUD 2.7 find its way into the loss before tax.
Breaking down the P&L for those with a keen eye for detail, you'll see the remainder of the valuation sitting below profit or loss after tax in the other comprehensive income line. At the end of the period, we finished with net debt of AUD 6.8 million. I'm now turning to the revenue, it really was a revenue story on the back of the increased volumes. Pleasingly, we saw Skydive achieve its highest volumes post-pandemic in both Australia and New Zealand, tracking at close to 50% in Q4, following a challenging few years. As John alluded to, Adventure Experiences traded strongly in the year. As noted in recent updates, we did see the impact of the domestic shoulder season play out, especially in the second half in February and March, and the impact of the Bamurru delay in project.
As we gradually see a shift to an international customer base, in line with John's earlier arrivals observations and the improvements we're seeing there. As to international recovery, we do expect the impact of these domestic shoulder seasons to be less pronounced than what we've seen, certainly in this year. Increasingly, we continue to focus on revenue per customer across the business and are seeing increases across the portfolio, which has been really pleasing. Moving into skydiving, we did see the momentum continue through the period, and as John said, pleased to see a return to an underlying EBITDA of AUD 4.1, primarily led through the second half.
Australia continued to recover through the period, most pleasing was the pace of recovery in our New Zealand business, with Q4 2023 at just shy of 50% of pre-pandemic levels and pricing returning to in the NZD 500 per customer. John will come to this later in the presentation, but the key read-through on the New Zealand's return, as it's been driven from the international markets. In the second half, the all-important China market, which opened up in early January on the back of New Zealand's ADS status. We'll come to that in more detail later in the presentation. During the period, we also continued to be agile and look for other revenue sources in the period, including utilizing our aircraft fleet for charter work and leveraging our engineering capabilities in Performance Aviation to increase our revenue streams.
As we've discussed many times, we've invested in rebuilding our staffing capacity, and this continued in the second half, along with ensuring appropriate retention to make sure we can open up our market-leading drop zones as these markets return. We'll continue to look to match the demand improvement with investing and retaining appropriate labor levels. Finally, as we see the key international source markets return, such as China, we've continued to reengage with third-party distributions in key source markets as they open up. Moving into the following slide, in Adventure Experiences, it has been a great year for this segment and includes the full year of Treetop Adventures, which has made us a more resilient business and improved our quality of earnings.
We did see the second half, as I alluded to earlier, impacted by elements of seasonality, in particular, that domestic shoulder season in February and March, where we just did not have the international markets, that we'd typically see to offset the softer domestic market that we always see in those periods. Reef Unlimited volumes in the year were at 90% of FY19 levels. Although we remember that FY19 wasn't the best year on record for this market, it's pleasing to see that that is primarily being driven by the domestic market. We are seeing that rotation to international improve as we get to the back end of the second half.
Over the course of the year, you may recall that Treetop's performance in the first half of the year was impacted by the inclement weather conditions in the key July and October holiday period. We're delighted to see the second half not see those impacts. Into July, and John will mention this later, we've seen some strong trading in this category. Just reflecting overall on the Adventure Experiences in FY23, it has demonstrated the continued benefits of a diversified experience portfolio and earning base and customer base, with Experiences contributing AUD 13.5 million to underlying EBITDA. Moving into the balance sheet, we ended the period with AUD 8.6 million in cash holdings and net debt of AUD 6.8 million.
As discussed earlier, the tangible assets increased largely on the back of a AUD 9 million increase in the fair value of aircraft assets that we independently valued in the month of June. We saw operating cash flow improve in the period, despite some working capital absorption into receivables and some unwind of revenue received in advance or contract liabilities, as, as they're termed and disclosed in the balance sheet. In the period, we had CapEx and net investing activity, kind of faces looks a bit higher for a year-on-year basis, but that comprised approximately a AUD 2 million working capital outflow which was classified into this line item. We also had the investment in Zamaru, AJPA, and Treetop new sites, even with maintenance CapEx in the order of AUD 8.5 million in the period.
In relation to the capital structure, during the second half, we extended, extended the NAB corporate facility maturity to 31 March 2025, and reset the minimum cash covenant to AUD 2 million until the 1st of November 2023. In relation to the balance sheet, we make the following comments: We have a strong balance sheet in terms of the quality of the fixed assets with minimal net debt leverage. As any business should in our sector, we'll continue to monitor the liquidity levels closely entering FY 2024. Most importantly, we'll continue to build a high-quality growth pipeline and explore appropriate debt options to support the growth objectives of the business as earnings recover into FY 2024. John, I'll hand back to you to take us through the strategy, trading update, and outlook.
Thanks, Owen. Turning now to Slide 15 on our strategy. Management still remains very committed to our longer-term strategy that we've presented to the market before and the outlook for the business. We still maintain that a post-recovery earnings capability of the core business remains at $40 million in EBITDA. While the time that this is achieved by will be solely dictated by the rate of return of international visitors, and particularly the Chinese inbound market, management sees no reason to vary this longer-term outlook and remains excited by the opportunity. Our focus, of course, in delivery on this, is executing recovery in our legacy business units, particularly Reef Unlimited and also Skydive across Australia and New Zealand, whilst also continuing to focus on growing the contribution of our successful Treetops segment and Wild Bush Luxury segments.
We, of course, as always, remain active in seeking bolt-on and complementary acquisitions for the company. Turning now to Slide 16 and focusing on the investment that took place during FY23. As outlined earlier in our presentation, our focus on growth this year has been predominantly organic, with expansion across Wild Bush Luxury and Treetops Adventure segments, supported by the acquisition of the Australian Jump Pilot Academy in our Performance Aviation Performance Aviation business unit. I'm really pleased to report that since May, our Cape Tribulation Treetops Adventure site has been achieving pre-reconstruction business case visitation volumes, and our Taronga Park Zoo site, whilst still operating at a reduced capacity due to delays caused by the Taronga Conservation Society's construction schedule, continues to contribute strongly to the portfolio. Whilst also reaffirming our position of dominance in this segment in the Sydney market.
Trees, generally as a segment, has been very strong in July and of August, we are very, very happy with the contribution that it's making to the business. The new suites at Bamurru Plains continue to attract strong booking interest, the 30% new operating capacity in the site will be advantageous to the business as the premium international visitation sector returns to Australia and, in particular, to the top end of the Northern Territory. Finally, the acquisition of the Australian Jump Pilot Academy is really about ensuring that we have a steady pipeline of pilots and pilot capability to allow us to flex back to those pre-pandemic levels within our Skydive operating segment. Turning now to Slide 17 on international leverage.
As we've said many times before, and will continue to say again, whilst Australia's inbound recovery is fantastic news, the name of the game for EXP is really down to the return of the international market and, in particular, the Chinese traveler. The longer term predictions of Tourism Australia and Oxford Economics on the return of the Chinese market remains consistent with previous presentations and updates. Very much the thematic for our business is the international opportunity remains. After its reopening in January, it's a very positive sign to see that both Australia and New Zealand now have fully uninhibited access through the reinstatement of ADS status for our Australian business. This is a massive positive for us, and as we believe it will contribute towards better aviation capacity and also a larger addressable leisure market being able to come to Australia.
Flight capacity into Australia remains close to 70% and is expected to grow to 80% by year end, with the addition, addition of capacity into ports such as Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth, as well as second-tier city, aviation access from China into the main gateway cities of Sydney and also Melbourne. As we've said before, we are looking towards the weak results of Golden Week and into November to get the exact picture on how this market's recovery will behave through to FY 2024. Turning now to Slide 18, and before we open up the call for questions, we'd like to provide you with a very quick trading update and outlook. In July, the business traded at an EBITDA positive and a cash flow neutral basis.
Across our segments, in Skydive, we continued to grow our PCP basis of volumes by almost 30% across Australia and New Zealand. Primarily, this was driven out of the New Zealand business, which saw almost a 60% increase in volumes for the month of July ahead of FY 2022. The Reef Unlimited business enjoyed another strong month of trading on the reef, despite some weather affecting our Port Douglas operations. This market, in particular, is highly exposed to that Sydney and Victorian leisure markets, who are extremely weather sensitive. Certainly, what we are doing at the moment is watching the impact on higher outbound travel by Australians, as well as the transition into the international market and the effects on this region of Australia.
The standout performer, as I said before, however, was Treetop Adventures, which exceeded its volumes by over 20% on budget and 30% on prior year. It enjoyed incredibly strong trading out of New South Wales and Queensland, particularly driven by the Cape Tribulation site.... We're a big believer in this category of attraction, given its direct-to-market nature, lower price point, and leisure-based attributes. We certainly believe that within our portfolio, it's certainly cost of living proof. Wild Bush Luxury performed to expectations, with good bookings in Bamurru Plains and a strong reception of our Maria Island winter product. Looking forward, our outlook remains positive. To reiterate, the Chinese recovery is about to commence with the removal of the last remaining barrier to travel to Australia in its ADS status reinstatement.
Secondly, our view on the longer-term earnings capacity of the core business, excluding any new acquisitions or organic growth opportunities, still remains about AUD 40 million of underlying EBITDA. Thirdly, the focus of management is around ensuring that we return to the FY19 earnings and business performance as quickly as possible once market conditions improve. Finally, consistent with previous practice, no earnings guidance will be provided for FY 2024. Thank you once again, ladies and gentlemen, for your time. Look forward to taking your questions.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up your handset to ask your question. Our first question is from John O'Shea with Ord Minnett . Please go ahead. John O'Shea, your line is open.
Morning, John and Owen. Can you hear me okay?
Yep.
Sure can.
Sorry, I was on mute there. Just a question in terms of, obviously, your AUD 40 million target that's out there. Can you give us some sort of sense as to, obviously, it's difficult to predict, I understand, with the, you know, the uncertainty around when the Chinese and to what extent the recovery comes back there? How should we think about that in terms of the timeline of that recovery is my question, and has that kind of changed a little bit in your mind? Obviously, the longer it goes on, does that change the timeframe, or can you just talk me through how I should think about getting to that number in timing?
You should think about that, as we've said previously before, John, is that we expect to achieve a run rate probably in the back end of FY 2025. That equates to that figure. Then we expect that during FY 2026, you should see the business having that earnings capability. I think the thing that I would add as a caveat to that is that it really comes back to the rate of international recovery and the rate of the Chinese recovery, because of the Chinese market share within, particularly within the skydiving segment across Australia and New Zealand. As we've said previously, that will be clearer to us, and I think clearer to the Australian industry as a whole, once we've been through Golden Week, and we look forward out to, as we look forward out to Chinese New Year.
No change from where we've been previously. Having said that, we will monitor the results of Golden Week and have a better understanding of that, that rate of recovery from there. Because that is the first major holiday period where we've got better flight capacity, you've got ADS reinstates for both markets, you've got an FIT market, that's able to travel, and you've got our business, you know, open to a more normalized operating capacity.
That's, that's clear, guys, and thanks for sort of going through that for me. Just turning to the CapEx slide, you mentioned on the CapEx of about AUD 8.5 million. Is that a sort of reasonable expectation as to?
Yeah, I, I think-
Moving forward now?
Yeah, yeah. I think particularly if we look at the Treetops portfolio now into the business, it's probably about 8.5, 9 sort of area. John, I think we'd predicted 8-9. Probably, yeah, 8.5, 9 feels like the right fit. Now, I, I, I do apologize, John, in terms of how it comes through. It's one of those accounting things where it comes in, in the cash flow statements. There'll be a bit in working capital, and then unwinds in 1 period if you have it over the end of the thing. I'll just indeed update people on what's actually happening in the cash flow sense on those amounts.
Sure. Look, I, I guess the one final one for me, are you seeing? You mentioned, obviously, about the, the strength in outbound and, and, you know, the fact that obviously the, in part, the, the adventure business put aside trees as being a beneficiary of the strong domestic leisure travel would be. Have you seen sort of, have you seen that sort of translate into the adventure business outside of tree in terms of that shift? Do you know what I mean? Have you seen any, or is the international side sort of helping to sort of bridge that gap as they have been going?
I think what we're seeing is we're seeing that peak domestic travel, in places like, you know, Cairns in particular. You're seeing that starting to adjust now as Australians go offshore. What you're also seeing simultaneous to that is that you're seeing the increase now in, you know, inbound visitors.
Yep.
into that region. You're seeing a, a slight softening and, but it's still very, very healthy numbers. You're also seeing that, that increase in particularly out of markets like U.S., India's been a very strong market for North Queensland, for us, in particular, out of Cairns. Also the, the U.S. as well. Port Douglas is a little different because it's primarily for our business, and New South Wales and Victoria are the main source markets there. It's very, it's a very low number, but it's just been, it's still been consistently strong, save for the fact that, you know, Victorians seem to be sensitive to wind on the, on the reef, so they don't go out as much. Yeah. Thanks, guys. That's it for me. Thanks very much. Yeah.
The next question is from Allan Franklin with Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.
Morning, guys. Thanks for your time. Hope you're well. I'll just get the first line of questioning around trees. Perhaps just how to think about the capacity within that business, just sort of noting, stronger you, you, you suggested some 25,000 sort of annual capacity out of there. We're looking to sort of a prior periods, you have been able to do more than some 400,000 packs in FY 2021. Is it sort of fair to assume that this sort of upside case for capacity areas of 4, 450+ , or is there sort of a range in which you?
In terms of capacity, Alan, certainly. Yeah, that capacity is there. It's just a matter of getting that clean run. Like, if we get, like July, John alluded to, that could fill capacity quite quickly. I mean, when you...
Yep.
Sorry, sorry, Alan. I mean, I think one of the things what we saw during FY23 was that, you know, you had some, I guess, off the scale weather events that really hit New South Wales, in particular, at that peak sort of holiday period time in July, but also in October, which, you know, which when you remove, as we saw in July of this year, I mean, this was a, a category that did, you know, in, in July, did over 45,000 customers. You know, for us, it's, for us, what we, what we've seen is that, as Alan said, you know, that operating capacity is certainly there to hit, you know, to hit those numbers.
Perfect.
Yeah.
Just maybe a line of questioning around incoming demand and just how you think you will get the attention and or the lion's share of that incoming demand, please, just on the sort of marketing?
Incoming, incoming demand being international?
Sorry. Correct. Yep.
Yeah.
Probably, probably demand should be more, more the Chinese demand as well.
Yeah. Well, I think, I think it comes down to a couple of things. We're, I mean, we're certainly, what we're certainly doing now is we're spending more and more time working with third-party distributors, because whilst, you know, we've spent a lot of time building up that direct-to-consumer market, and that will continue to be a, you know, a primary focus of our sales team. The inbound market will, will naturally revert to online travel agents and also your brick-and-mortar travel agents, particularly out of markets like China, who are a big user of the OTA channel, and Japan, who are a big user of the alternative channel. I mean, we're doing, we're doing as you'd expect any international tourism company to do.
We're working alongside of bodies like Tourism Australia, Tourism Queensland, Tourism New Zealand, in attending trade shows. We've maintained those relationships throughout COVID, particularly with the OTAs, and those key inbound, key inbound agencies. We're certainly working through that. I think the other thing we've done is we've done a lot of work, we've increased familiar activity, so getting the profile, the new things that we have as opposed to what our competitors do. You know, we do have the newest pontoon on the Great Barrier Reef. We have a new experience in the Daintree Rainforest. We've been emphasizing that as well as the new expansion at, at Bamurru Plains. All of those sort of factors, you know, they, they count for something when you're in those markets because you're able to talk about something new.
It's really working those third-party channels, and emphasizing, you know, the, I guess, the, the product differentiation that we have, vis-a-vis our competitors. The business has, has had, you know, back in FY19, the business had a, you know, had a good reputation, particularly in skydiving, for that international market. I mean, it, it, it's certainly the good thing is that we're not coming off a, a zero, a zero sum base. That's how we've been approaching it.
Sure. I've got one other one, please, just on, on, on New Zealand.
Yeah.
Perhaps how you're thinking about that, I mean, where was the utopic capacity and, and, and Australia in a, in a lot of detail. New Zealand obviously has, has a half a step ahead of...
Yeah
... the Australian market in terms of the Chinese recovery. Yeah, how are you sort of seeing things there, noting Q2 and Q3 in New Zealand are, I guess, a little bit heightened in terms of seasonal trade and...
Yeah.
You sort of seeing as ahead of time, I guess?
Yeah, well, I mean, I think, you know, remembering that it's the skydive segment, so you don't really get visibility until sort of 72 hours before you, before the experience is enacted. I mean, look, we're seeing out of, we're seeing out of New Zealand, you know, I think the recovery there has been a good lesson, I think, for Australia, in that they, they came out of the blocks, they came out of the blocks really hard, particularly with that Chinese market, having ADS status, and not, not so much because we're ADS-focused in our customer base. It's probably more it increases the addressable market that's going into the, into New Zealand.
Certainly what we've seen there, you know, between FY22 and FY23, you know, we, we saw in volume, you know, over 300,000, an increase in, in volume coming through that skydive business. The skydive business there, still with a lot of capacity to, to, to go from, from where it ended up. I think their arrival data is, it's similar to Australia. I think they're sort of around about, sort of, I think it's around 60, 60 odd % back of where they were, with good inbound capacity from major markets, particularly markets like, particularly markets like the U.S., China and, India. You know, we think that, we think that the opportunity there still is really strong.
The biggest inbound market into there obviously, is still Australians, but, you know, for us as a business in Skydive New Zealand, you know, about 20% at the moment of our market is coming out of, of Australia. To set some context, it's less than, less than 10% of our customers in New Zealand are Chinese, whereas pre-COVID, you were, you know, you were close to the 40%. There's still a lot of, you know, there's still a lot of upside in that business from, from that market, China, particularly, but also just generally the, the inbound, the inbound story there.
Thank you.
This concludes the question and answer session. I'll now send the conference back over to John O'Sullivan for any closing remarks.
Oh, thanks, everyone, for your time and your support during FY23 as always. I hope you all have a good day. Thank you.
That does conclude your conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may disconnect.