I would now like to hand the conference over to Ms. Katrina Barry, Managing Director. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Kaylee. And good morning, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. Today, we're really pleased to be able to talk you through the first half results for the newly demerged Webjet Group. And joining me today is Layton Shannos, our CFO. First off, I just thought we should address the delay in holding this session. So the demerger of WJL, or Webjet Group, was officially completed on the 30th of September. And for clarity, so that everyone's on the same page, we are adopting predecessor accounting, and that allows continuity and comparability of our financial reporting. So with the demerger only very recently occurring, for the current reporting period, we are reporting in our own right as Webjet Group Limited. But because we're also a discontinued operation of Web Travel, hence there was quite a bit of complexity.
And understandably, production of financial reports on a demerged basis is very complex. So as part of finalizing the auditor's review of the Webjet Group, and in order to present the comparatives for the prior reporting period, as if we'd always been operating independently, we needed to take some additional time with the auditors and with Web Travel Group to review certain matters. Specifically, one of the key issues was share-based payments and the accounting for that for our Webjet Group employees who were previously employees of Web. So all this further review related to the comparative reporting period. And while those comparative numbers are only representative in nature and, I guess, for everybody's benefit for comparison, it was really important to take the time to ensure that the numbers were appropriately tested.
Clarifying, the review did not result in any change to our results for the first half 2025, as was indicated last week. So with that said, I'd just like to thank everybody for their patience and understanding, and onwards and upwards. So before we get into the detail, welcome to our new shareholders. And I thought I would just quickly set the scene for our first-time listeners. So for those of you following along at home, I'm going to start here on page four. So before we just explain the results, I just wanted to clarify that Webjet Group, WJL, separate from Web Travel Group, we have two specific divisions, being the OTA, Webjet OTA, and GoSee. Webjet OTA, you will all know, is the number one OTA in Australia, New Zealand, the original and the best travel marketplace.
But now, with the greater focus and investment that the demerger brings, GoSee has two direct-to-consumer brands, these being Airport Rentals and Motorhome Republic. And around 50% of the revenue from these two brands actually comes from about 129 affiliates. So that's like a white label site. Think about Air New Zealand's motorhome offer. That is powered by Motorhome Republic. Or if you go to the Gold Coast and you're searching for a car rental, that is powered by Airport Rentals. TripNinja is our tech investment. It's a startup, recently purchased a few years ago. And we've seen that deliver incredible results for OTA. It's fully integrated within our Webjet OTA. This is AI, and we use this to deliver complex multi-stop itineraries, pulling together airline segments that wouldn't normally sit together. And this enables it on one ticket, which saves customers time and money. So that's the group.
Turning to page five, and we'll be coming back to this page a lot, so I just wanted to make sure it was front of mind for everybody. This is our strategy on a page. This is our plan on how we're going to be driving growth over the next one to two years. So to those of you who joined us on the investor roadshow for the demerger, you'll remember me talking about our mission. We're here to help people travel. And we do that by seamlessly integrating world-class tech. And our vision is to grow our leadership positions in all the online travel marketplaces which we are present. Now, how do we do that? We're going to do that through driving these four key strategic pillars. On the roadshow, I emphasized four specific levers that we're really focused on pulling right now to drive growth.
That's around the brand, loyalty, our ancillaries, selling ancillaries, and international share, or for OTA specifically, international flights and growing that. If we turn to page six, we've made some really great progress on these levers. We're going to dive into detail and a bit more in the next few pages. You'll see the red highlights there on page numbers. Importantly, I just wanted to summarize off the incredible work that has happened in the last half on these levers. The Webjet OTA brand research is complete. We've got the fact base, and now we begin to work on refreshing the brand. We're looking forward to doing that in the new year. Our OTA, for Webjet OTA, our member-only program, has launched with exceptional results. I'll tell you more about that in a moment.
Our focus on capturing the whole of the travel wallet with the sale of ancillaries is working. Our international flight bookings are up on Webjet OTA, and we'll continue to drive efficiency across all of our brands. Moving on to page seven, let's see the results. In short, a very pleasing EBITDA result of AUD 19.4 million. We think this is an excellent outcome in this environment, and this is purely resulting from our focus on revenue optimization. Look, I think it's been extensively published that the ongoing cost of living pressures, it's continuing to subdue demand for travel, particularly for domestic flights. There's significant price rises in domestic flights recently. And if lower domestic flights, fewer domestic flights are being purchased, necessarily, therefore, fewer car rentals are being made.
So our Webjet OTA bookings were impacted during the period by the softening, but also by Rex Airlines going into administration. Rex Airlines, as a reminder, they were predominantly leisure-focused, representing about 5% of the market share in Australia. So that did impact us in terms of volume. You can see here in terms of the revenue and EBITDA margins. Now, this is a good news story. You'll see the revenue there is at 9.6 for the half. That's about 8.9 from the prior comparative period. And EBITDA, 26.9. Again, just up. Now, I want to say that again because there's been some misreporting over the weekend, shall we say, but Webjet, or WJL, our margins are up on prior comparative period. That is an excellent result in this market. And this result is, as telegraphed by John at the AGM, our bookings in TTV are down. That's expected.
But our EBITDA is up 1% on our prior period. As I said, why? This is because we are focusing on driving those higher margin products, such as ancillaries and international flights in the OTA business. Let's dig in and go to OTA. So I'm on page 10. So the key metrics for the OTA business standalone are here. And there's 644,000 bookings, and that obviously flows through to a lower TTV. The key takeaway for the OTA, though, is the higher margin product focus. And that's really helping us offset the subdued domestic bookings. So it's delivered revenue that's up, AUD 62.1 million there. Strong revenue margin for OTA, 9.4%. And EBITDA, again, just up on last year, but with an exceptional margin at 44.1%. I think John Guscic could be slamming the table saying world-class margins at this point.
Turning now to page 11, I won't go into the details, but the table's got all the figures there for you with the deltas on the right-hand side. And in terms of bookings, I think the key thing for you to think about here and to note is that international flights, as a share of our total bookings, is up 12%. Now, we've spoken about how this is a very clear focus for us to grow in this space. So we'll discuss further later, but we're really delighted with that result. You can see the impact of the domestic softening coming through. And with the cost of living and rents, which we've spoken about, that's been pushing domestic bookings down 10%. So revenue is up. Expenses, you can see they are largely flat. A little bit of CPI increases to salary and marketing slightly up on 1.6% of TTV.
All this results in delivering an EBITDA, which is 3.2. Very good result by the OTA team. Now, we thought it was worth just breaking down a bit more on this revenue optimization we're pursuing. Onto page 12 for those following along at home. Revenue per booking, it's one of the key strategic levers that we're pulling. Just to set a bit of context for how you should think about this, have a look at the left-hand side chart. This is comparative year 2019, so think about it pre-COVID. Now, you'll note that it was $96 per booking is what we reported. Now, there's been two substantial changes. The first is a change in upfront commissions and overrides we received from airlines. And that's dramatically moved down from sort of 5% to circa 1.5%. So that removed $12 million of revenue that was available to us.
Then also, the Webjet's exclusive business. That was a division that was closed during COVID. So if you take those two things out, which don't exist today, the most comparable to our current operating environment is that AUD 80 in terms of revenue per booking on the CY 2019, comparative year 2019 chart on the left-hand side. Now, fast forward to the right-hand side, revenue per booking for the first half 2024 was AUD 88, and with our focus on the revenue optimization, international bookings, ancillaries, that is now delivering AUD 96. That's a direct result of the strategic levers that we're pulling. Really good result and heading in the right direction, so let's spend a bit more time on each one of those levers so you can really understand how we're thinking about this. I'm on page 13 now, so let's talk ancillaries. The plan here is to grow both.
When I say both, I mean air ancillaries and non-air ancillaries. Let's start with non-air ancillaries first. Now, this is about our focus on capturing the whole of the travel wallet, or the whole of the travel transaction. So when someone books a flight with us, sometimes they go off and buy their hotel on another side. Obviously, we want to change that. So we want to capture the whole transaction, or the whole holiday, if you will. So the hotel, your car hire, the insurance, these are all examples of what we call non-air ancillary, or the extra if you think about it that way. So if you look at the chart on the right-hand side, you can see that pre-COVID, non-air ancillaries, that made up about 25% of our total revenue. Okay?
What the team did between then and now, it's really focused on redesigning our hotel user experience, focusing on using marketing to focus on cross-sell, and really helping our customers understand how they can Bundle & Save with us. So that non-air ancillaries now makes up 35% of our revenue. Now, all ancillaries are good ancillaries because they are a higher commission margin to us, and there's no cost of acquisition because they've already gotten to the site buying their flight. Now, let's talk about air ancillaries. Now, to be clear on the chart, air ancillaries is in the gray part there, air. That's our upfront and backend commissions, but also our air ancillaries. Now, this is going well. Okay? We already sell flight add-ons for some low-cost carriers. And very recently, very recently, we introduced paid seat sales for another airline. And this has gone really well.
This gives us really strong confidence to continue to invest and focus our tech development on building out this capability with more GDS airlines. So that's under development. But going forward, we really expect that ancillaries will grow through our focus on the member-only deals, focusing on that cross-sale as our marketing technology becomes more sophisticated. So we expect both non-air and air ancillaries. And coming back to my point, this drives the more revenue per booking. All right. So that's ancillaries. Let's jump on to page 14. International. Remember, I'm just talking about OTA here. So you'll recall this business, 26 years young, it was built off the back of selling domestic flights and giving Australians and Kiwis great choice and convenience in how they put together their travel. But given the changes in the commission landscape, our pivot was, okay, we need to sell some more international flights.
Bear in mind, as we shared with you earlier in the year, each international flight delivers us two and a half times the revenue that a domestic booking does. Two and a half times the revenue. So if you look at the chart on the right-hand side, you can see that this focus is really paying off. Now, this is de-risking our business. It's diversifying our business. And that's good when you're seeing the ups and downs in domestic and international and where average booking values or average flight prices are going and where the trends are for Australians and Kiwis and where they're traveling. So if you look at it pre-COVID, international bookings as a share of our total bookings was 15%. Last year, this time, prior comparative period, 17%. And now, 20%.
So despite the cost of living pressures, international demand or demand for traveling overseas is being stimulated by falling ticket prices. And they're certainly a lot lower than they were a few years ago, but also new capacity coming into the market. Now, if we're honest, this is not a market that we own today, selling international flights to Aussies and Kiwis. We don't own it. We are the leading OTA, and that base is definitely built around domestic. But if you combine the tailwinds in this space of travel, it's going to continue to move to online. We've got more capacity coming back, and international flight prices are dropping. There's a big pie that we just have to grab a greater share of. And that's what we're doing. So the winners here in this space will be those with the best content at the best price.
Now, this is a key point. As an early mover on NDC, we get broader and more differentiated product because we're connected with our key partners, our key airline partners via NDC. And we also get pricing advantages. Now, that soon will become very well placed for us in this space because Australian competitors have not invested in NDC like we have. And we see this as a real advantage to us in the future. Better product at a better price. And this is Webjet's bread and butter. This is where our expertise really comes to the fore. We take complex tech, we integrate it, and we make it really easy for customers. This is where this comes to fruition. TripNinja is a great example. It's our AI tool that we use for multi-stops. And that's really continuing to deliver us margin and advantage for international flights.
That's all moving in the right direction, and the focus is paying off. Last one for OTA. Member-only. For those of you who have been on the journey, you'll remember the team and I talking about a real focus that we wanted to drive on loyalty and around our Webjet members. So somebody who logs into the Webjet site when they do their bookings. Now, on behalf of the OTA team, I'm super proud to announce that our member-only campaigns are now in full swing. We've launched five since we last spoke to the market in September, and the results are very encouraging. For the first campaign, for example, we had a 250% increase in sign-ups and a 100% increase in logins. That's exceptional, and across the duration of these five campaigns, on average, the sign-in was 200% up.
Now, this is really positive for us because it allows us to grow deeper, stickier relationships with these customers. And what does that do? They come back. They know us. It drives repeat rate. It drives loyalty. And conversely, it drives down our marketing acquisition cost. You can see there on the page, we've also made it super easy to sign up and sign in using social sign-in now via Google. So that's just making it really easy for people to do this sign-in. Now, all this adds up really nicely to us building out our first data, our first-party data database, ensuring we know our customers. And that's going to allow us to get more sophisticated with our marketing and grow more personalization. Okay. Let's jump on to GoSee. Okay. Turning to page 17. So you can see the results here for GoSee. They are down.
So this is a business we've been extremely focused on in the last few months. There's three real drivers, I'd say, to this result with bookings being down and TTV being down. The first one is, as I mentioned before, softening domestic flight demand. Now, with that, naturally leads through to lower car bookings online. The second thing is motorhome volumes are still to recover to historical levels. Now, I've been talking about this for a while as a business. So remember, this is primarily Motorhome Republic, an inbound market operator, if you will. And as such, tourism into Australia and into New Zealand from those long-haul destinations and Europe and North America, I think the French people coming down and the Germans coming down for those long six, seven-week tours around the South Island or the Red Centre, those volumes are still depressed.
Prices on motorhomes are thus high. As I said in September, we are seeing green shoots, but not fast enough. When those fully grow, they probably need a little bit more water and fertilizer. When we see those green shoots really grow, we'll be able to see a rebound in motorhomes. Now, the third reason to this result, and you can really see it in the drop-off from the revenue to the EBITDA there, is the higher fixed-cost model to service motorhomes as a category. It's a higher-touch product. For those of you who joined along on the roadshow, you'll remember me talking about 65% of motorhome bookings are straight-through processing. Okay? So you don't have to touch them. They book online. They confirm online. But the balance, that 35%, requires human interaction.
Now, the business down in GoSee has done an exceptional job of moving that much higher. But that 35%, that's the expense of 35%. So it's really easy to see an expense line if you jump to the next page. Expenses are roughly, if you think about it contextually and how I look at these things, expenses are roughly 28%, the same size as OTA, and revenue is about 13% of the size. OTA has a very 70%-80% of its costs are variable, not so in GoSee. And so that's why you see that sharp drop-off to the EBITDA and that really disappointing result, I think, of only AUD 200,000 in terms of profit this half. But that's the detail and the delta there on page 18. But I think the most important thing is to turn to page 19 and what we're doing about it.
I think we've made the call that we can no longer wait for the market to return, and so we've made the tough calls, and we've made them fast. Layton and I have been spending a lot of time with the management team in New Zealand on a deep-dive strategic review. Working with them, that is now complete, and the key changes are there on the right-hand side under outcome of our review. The first thing the team has done is simplify and automate what we could. A great example of this is languages, for example, for customer support. As I said, this has always been a global business. We've had receiving people from overseas to hire these motorhomes, etc. We previously offered 11 languages and service in 11 languages. We've reduced that to a handful. You might lose a couple of bookings, but it's not substantial.
The outcome of all of these, and there's been multiple things that the team have done an excellent job in terms of automating and simplifying and removing non-value-add tasks, is we've had a sizable right-sizing of the staff, and a restructuring is presently underway and will be completed by the end of this month. This will result in AUD 4 million of annualized operational expense savings, with the first million will flow through into this next half. So a big call, but the right call, and we've done it fast. So the other last thing to note, just as a side, is in addition to make sure we're really focusing our online investment and our presence, we're going to be retiring the GoSee brand, as in the mother brand, sitting across both Airport Rentals and Motorhome Republic. And we're just going to really focus behind those two brands.
One, they're better known, and more importantly, they've got a better algorithm rating on the all-famous internet and Google. So from now on, you'll hear me refer to those two brands, and you'll see that reflected in our logos, etc., as we move forward. So that's GoSee. It's not great, but we've done the right things, and we've done it fast. So that is the overview of the high-level results, the deep dive on OTA and GoSee. And with that, I'll hand over to Layton to take us through in more detail on the financials. Thanks, Layton.
Thanks, Katrina. And good morning, everyone. If I can turn your attention now to slide 21, which outlines the first half 25 financial summary. And starting off with the statutory result, now, there's a number of items in the first half 24 comparative here that are purely accounting-related and driven by the demerger.
So we've adjusted for these in underlying operations to really provide a clear like-for-like comparison of financial performance. And this also aligns with what was presented in the demerger booklet. I think the easiest way to think about these adjustments is like wrong pocket items, which previously would have eliminated on group consolidation, but post-demerger, the corresponding impact or other side now sits in Web Travel Group. So after adjusting for these items, along with share-based payments expense and non-operating expenses, which is consistent with historical treatment, gives underlying EBITDA of AUD 19.4 million, which is slightly up on first half 2024 there.
And we've provided the reconciliation from statutory to underlying EBITDA for you in the bottom right-hand corner there. Moving down the page to depreciation and amortization, the first half 2024 comparative here does not include AUD 3.7 million of amortization expense, which is specific to the Webjet OTA business.
And therefore, we've added this in underlying operations for consistency with first half 2025 and also moving forward. Net interest and finance costs include intercompany interest expense that doesn't or won't apply post-demerger. So what we'll see here is positive net interest income coming through in the second half. And that's really thanks to our strong cash balance and no debt. And in terms of tax, we expect an effective tax rate of around 30%, which is aligned with our predominantly Australian-based earnings profile. So underlying NPAT increased to AUD 9.2 million for the half. And pleasingly, we continue to drive margin improvement. So that concludes the financial summary and key items. And look, for us, the focus really remains on underlying operations. This is really the best proxy for cash generation for the business and how we continue to evaluate performance.
Moving now to the next slide and taking a look at technology and corporate overhead. Starting with TripNinja, the AUD 1.4 million loss reported in first half 2025, that reflects higher headcount costs within that business. Onboarding of new customers continues to be a key priority here. However, the progress has been a bit slower than we initially anticipated and certainly would have liked, and that's largely being due to what we found is competing priorities within the dev roadmaps of our customer pipeline. But as a whole, TripNinja continues to deliver significant value for Webjet OTA, which is great. Looking at corporate overheads now, these were AUD 6.8 million for the half, which reflects both our allocation of corporate costs along with the additional costs we've incurred and that have been required to support our transition to operating as a standalone group.
Now, for clarity here and ease of comparison, the first half 24 comparative has been adjusted to include those estimated dyssynergies associated with the demerger, which is consistent with what was outlined in the demerger booklet. We started to see some of those dyssynergies begin to materialize in the first half 25, and we expect the second half to be relatively similar. Turning now to the balance sheet on slide 23. As Katrina mentioned earlier, we have an exceptionally strong balance sheet. This not only gives us financial stability, but also that flexibility to pursue our growth objectives. The highlight here really is that cash balance. During the period, cash increased by AUD 43 million, which was largely due to our share of the demerger cash allocation.
Now, this was very much a considered decision by the board to ensure that Webjet Group was set up for success from day one, so no debt, net cash of just over AUD 100 million as of 30th of September, and that net cash number excludes circa AUD 35 million of restricted cash and also AUD 7.9 million surplus demerger cash allocation, with the other side of that AUD 7.9 million sitting in the trade payables balance you see there, and which was subsequently repaid to Web Travel Group in the month of October. Lastly, on the balance sheet, the reduction you see in non-current liabilities simply reflects that the merger-related accounting process and the transfer of intercompany balances that were associated with that process.
So, like I said, an extremely strong balance sheet, and capital management certainly remains a key focus for us and something we'll be more explicit on at our full-year results in May 2025. Moving now on to the cash flow slide. I won't spend too much time here. Working capital and cash conversion were both impacted by all of those demerger-related accounting adjustments that I've touched on. But looking ahead, we expect cash conversion to normalize at around that 100% mark in FY 2026. And no interim dividend has been declared for the half, but as previously communicated, we anticipate paying dividends from FY 2026 onwards. And finally, turning to CapEx, we deliberately accelerated investment in the half. This was to support those strategic initiatives that Katrina outlined earlier, and we're already seeing some really, really great progress in these areas.
Overall, CapEx for the half came in at AUD 6.6 million, with a similar run rate expected in the second half. So that concludes the financials. And with that, thanks, everyone, and I'll hand back to Katrina.
Thanks, Layton. All right. So, as you can see, there's a really strong financial outcome and a particular highlight, I think, at AUD 100 million cash in the bank. That gives us a lot of flexibility and a lot of strength to really pursue our change in our growth agenda. But in summary, I think this is a very solid result for our first half. It's just up on last year's comparative and a particularly good outcome in this macroeconomic environment. Pleased to say we're one of the only ones that are holding up our delivery. So that's really, really pleasing. With that, I'd like to thank our brilliant team for an incredible half.
This period has all been about getting through the demerger, and I cannot begin to tell you how much work that has been. But now we've really set ourselves up for the go forward as a strong, independent business, and we've been focused on building the foundations for growth. Excellent progress is being made on those strategic levers that we spoke to the market about in September. We're pulling hard loyalty, and the ancillaries piece are really working on that. International flights going well, and all of this is making our relative revenue per booking higher than it was pre-pandemic. So that's a great result. We've made the tough calls that needed to be made with GoSee, and we're ready to refresh the OTA brand in the new year.
We've already refreshed Airport Rentals and Motorhome Republic, so we're in a good place to really go hard with the marketing next year. So clearly, there's been lots of work and a really dedicated focus from this team, which I am so pleased to inherit. They've been really focused on achieving this outcome, which I think is, frankly, an excellent result. Also, I'd like to say a big thank you to all our shareholders of old. You've been incredibly supportive and welcome to all our new shareholders who have joined the journey since the demerger. Thank you all for your continued support. I think looking forward, the macroeconomic environment continues to be challenging and given all our brands are consumer-facing, Webjet Group, we're not going to be immune.
However, we remain very optimistic on the broad and medium-term outlook, and pleasingly, we expect underlying full-year 2025 EBITDA to be broadly in line with FY 2024. So with the demerger behind us, we're all focused on the future. We're planning for our next horizon. Add to that our very strong balance sheet, and we're pretty well poised to make the most of the opportunity that this demerger brings. And that opportunity is to focus, to refresh and to rejuvenate the business and our team. We've got the energy, we've certainly got the capital, and we've got the balance sheet strength to pursue growth well into FY 2026 and beyond. So we're very much in planning mode for that now, and we look forward to sharing more with you. Mark your diaries.
We'll be having a strategy day in March 2025, and we'll be wanting to talk to you then about our plans for taking Webjet Group to the next horizon. So with that, Kaylee, I think we're ready to take any questions if there are any on the call.
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 the handset to ask your question. We will just pause for a moment to allow questioners to enter the queue. Your first question comes from Ben Gilbert with Jarden.
Hi, good morning, team. Just first question for me. Just you've historically, sorry, not historically.
When you were part of when it was Webjet Group, you usually sort of talked to some of the trends you saw in the early part of the half. I was just wondering what you're seeing in terms of TTV trends through the early part of the half, because some of your competitors said things have started to pick up a bit sort of through October into November.
Yeah, sure. So hi, and thanks for joining and your question. Look, what we're seeing for the first sort of six or seven weeks is TTV is up and bookings are slightly up. It's certainly a very pleasing first of the seven weeks of the half. We didn't put it in there because it was very confusing about which comparative you're talking about with demerger, etc. But that's why we've guided, I think, to that FY 2025 will be in line with FY 2024.
But aside, we're seeing some positive stuff over the last few weeks and positive on TTV and revenue and bookings for us.
And that's a second one for me. Just the cash balance. Appreciate it's obviously put you in a super strong position, but probably also made you quite an attractive sort of for people looking on the outside in at a target, given your scale and market. I'm just interested in how you're thinking about when you think you've sort of got the, maybe it's the wrong way to put it, but sort of right to do acquisitions. Do you feel that if something came up now, you'd look at it?
How much of a priority is that out there in terms of sort of utilizing, obviously, for the right deal, but utilizing that cash balance to go out there and sort of find adjacencies, opportunities, other brands, etc., in market?
Yeah. I mean, great point. I think it was a very clear decision by the board to set up both companies with sufficient capital to pursue their growth agendas. And you need to remember that was the point of the demerger, right? We had two very different customer groups and two very different growth profiles and focus in terms of where we want to go. So for us, we have a very clear growth plan, and that is around really consolidating our leadership positions in these travel marketplaces.
We've got some levers that we really want to invest in to pull for that we probably haven't invested in enough in the past. The strong balance sheet is there for a reason. We will be pursuing organic growth very strongly, but we are looking at inorganic growth opportunities as well. Are we ready? Yeah, we're ready. We've got a playbook to find with the board in terms of what we'll be looking at. What I can say about that is we're taking a very disciplined approach, and any acquisition or partnership would need to be strategically aligned. It's got to be able to leverage our strategic assets and obviously be highly accretive. We are absolutely open, and we are looking, and that is the point of having a very strong balance sheet.
We've got a lot of conviction about our organic growth, and we've got lots of opportunity felt in organic growth as well.
Thanks. And so I just want to follow up on the first one. So given you've had such a strong start, albeit early days, to the second half, and you talked to the brand relaunch, are you assuming any sort of step-up in marketing associated with that? And that's maybe why costs or EBITDA might be sort of sluggish for the second half.
Look, we're expecting the full-year result for FY 2025 to be in line with the FY 2024. We are, as I said, planning on doing a brand refresh. Don't think change, just think refresh, a bit of an extra nail polish on the brand, if you will, a little bit of a glow-up.
And we'll be doing that in the first half of the calendar year next year. Now, that'll take some time to do. And when we do that, we will put some marketing dollars, extra marketing dollars behind that. I think that'll most likely, a lot of that impact will fall into the first half of FY 2026, but we'll be getting at the tail end of the second half, FY 2025. But we will be expecting to sort of almost do a little mini push on the piece, on that piece. So we are planning for a little bit of that occurring from probably about March onwards.
Fantastic. Thank you.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from Ben Wilson with Wilsons Advisory.
Hi, Ben. How are you?
Yeah. Well, thank you. Morning, Katrina and Layton. And yeah, look, good result on the international bookings in particular.
I guess just focusing back on the domestic bookings. Also, typically, not always, but you have disclosed your market share in the past. Just wondering if you can comment on market share movements, I guess, for both domestic and international. Just interested if you have lost a little bit of domestic market share.
Yeah. Thanks, Ben. Look, it's really interesting, actually. We've spent Layton and I spent quite a bit of time on the market share, and I know that that was something that sort of previous management had always included. Then for me, I'm a data nerd, so I spent quite a bit of time deep diving into the data sources. The GDS data that we're now getting, it doesn't really give a full picture of the market or OTA's performance. So, for example, we've always noted that it doesn't include low-cost carriers.
That's such a large part of the OTA customer base. The BITRE data is always outdated. It's sort of three months' delay. When I looked at all of that in totality, I really felt that it wasn't really showcasing exactly an accurate picture on market share. We do know from the GDS data that we're about 50%. Then you add on, you have to make an assumption around your share in the LCCs, and that's how we get to sort of our leadership position. I think that holds, but I feel like showing that our total bookings and how we extract revenue from that is the better thing for us to focus on, given though you're pulling together lots of different data sources, and we're not sure it's a fullest picture of the market. That's why I've made the call to, we'll focus on our game.
We know that we are the dominant OTA player, but we also know that there's lots of competitive pressure out there. But it's more, I think, more valuable for our shareholders to focus on how we're growing on our game.
Okay. Great. Thank you very much for that. And then just on international bookings, obviously, it's a big market. If you can sort of continue your strong growth there, have you got, I guess, a target in terms of what share of bookings you could get to, obviously at 20% at the moment?
Yeah. Well, obviously, we're expecting that to grow. But the job is not just to grow international, it's to grow the whole pie, right? So as a proportion, we expect that to be a bigger proportion over time of a total growing booking pie. Look, you're right, Ben. It's not a place that we own.
We don't own this in Australia, and we really think we've got a right to win there because everything is, every consumer category there is is moving online. That shift online is accelerating. Finally, international airfares are coming down. That's actually stimulating demand. And when a TTV or your total take from the ticket goes down, that's okay for us. It stimulates demand. And because of our unique revenue model, dropping prices is actually good for us compared to some of our competitors. We have internal focus and internal targets, but what I can share is it's a key growth pillar. We're excited to see so many more new airlines coming into the market, still continuing, which is a surprise. And the Virgin Qatar partnership, that's going to bring more competition. And average booking value for an international flight is about 8% down year-on-year in October.
So these are all good signs for us. We would like to see this grow substantially. That is our mission and what we're going after.
Great. Thanks very much, Katrina. Sorry, just one last, if I may. Just on GoSee, I think the cost-saving initiatives are certainly a good move and well-timed. Just interested in what level of consideration you gave to, I guess, making that division non-core. I guess just given that it's probably unlikely we'll see a real structural recovery in the motorhome segment in particular in the next 12 months or so.
Sorry, just to clarify your question, the consideration in terms of making that non-core?
Yeah, I guess potentially with a view to offloading it, I guess.
Okay. Good question. Look, you've got to remember that this division delivered AUD 12 million EBITDA pre-COVID. So that is certainly at the back of our minds.
Layton and I have spent a lot of time with that team. We've gone down to New Zealand three times or four times in the last, and I've only been here for four months. So we're really sort of supporting that team and working with them. But that's why we've had to make the big calls and make them fast because it is washing its face, but we'd like to return that business to a stronger profitability. So we've done the right things. We've simplified to make it a stronger business. We are seeing the green shoots. The airline prices are finally dropping. We just need some of those Frenchies and the Germans and the Canadians to come down and want to tour Australia and New Zealand. So we're watching that business very, very closely.
But the objective of this simplification and automation program, and therefore the right-sizing and the restructuring, was to let that business breathe for another day. So we'll be watching it closely. The team are really committed. The team are good down there. And I say down there because, obviously, our GoSee businesses, the majority of the people are based out of Auckland. So they have a very clear go-forward plan now on a slightly more simplified business, and we're clear on what needs to happen. So I think we'll get to the results of the full year, and then we can always review and discuss from then.
Okay. Yeah. Thanks very much, Katrina.
You're welcome.
Your next question comes from John O'Shea with Ord Minnett.
Hi, John. How are you?
Good. Thank you, Katrina. Morning to yourself and Layton. Just two questions from me if I could.
Firstly, on the revenue margins, obviously pleasing to see those move higher. Just wondering how much further scope you see in terms of those. And secondly, from me, you're mentioning the marketing you're keen to go hard to sort of refresh, I guess, is the term you used. And can you give us a sense as to what that could translate to in terms of more spend or different spend or how you sort of see that unfolding?
Sure. I'll deal with the first question first, John. I think in terms of the revenue margin, we're currently at 9.6%. As I understand, we've always sort of been hovering around that in the 8s as a total group. GoSee has a slightly higher revenue margin, but obviously a lower EBITDA margin. Look, I don't think we should think about that as getting too much higher. We're pretty proud of that one.
And that is a focus in terms of us making sure we maximize the value from each of these bookings. And that's not just purely on a margin basis. It's about actually selling on those ancillaries, attaching the extra car hire, making sure we capture that whole travel transaction. So it's a core focus, but I don't think you should think about that sort of going too much further beyond where it is today. That'd be a good result. In terms of marketing, there's a bit of a balance. We will be doing some work on refreshing the brand. That'll probably come with a bit of a creative messaging and a little bit of a campaign. That said, we do campaigns all the time. So we'll be redirecting some of the marketing dollar to support that.
But at the same time, we'll probably be allocating, along with Dave Galt, our CEO in the OTA division, a little pool to give it a bit of a push because we think it'll be pretty exciting.
Thanks very much.
Thanks, John.
Your next question comes from Tim Plumbe with UBS.
Good day, Tim. How are you?
Hi. Good, thanks. Just two questions from me, if that's all right. Just following on from Ben's initial question in terms of that FY 2025 guidance. So broadly in line with FY 2024, that includes AUD 1 million of cost-out benefit from GoSee. How are you guys thinking about the consumer environment in the second half? Does that guidance assume no improvement from what you're seeing today?
And if we did get a rate cut at some point next calendar year before the end of the year, does that give potential upside to that guidance?
Oh, wouldn't we all love a rate cut, Tim? That'd be great. Look, we've been deliberate in giving our guidance that FY 2025 will be broadly in line with FY 2024. We've been deliberate in that. And yes, despite seeing some really positive trading weeks over the last couple of months, we are not expecting a rate cut. And we are expecting, I think, the macroeconomic environment to remain a little subdued. I think everyone was talking about survive through 2025. I'm not sure what the press have coined for 2026 yet. Pick Up Sticks for 2026. I'm not sure. But I think we believe it'll still be a little bit subdued, particularly for domestic.
I think it's key to remember that on domestic, we've got two real players now. Our average booking values for domestic flights are up. So that is not helping, I think, drive domestic demand. And a third competitor like Rex will always keep the prices low. So I don't think we'll be immune to the macroeconomic challenges. Every consumer brand or retail brand is experiencing the same. That said, we're mindful of that, and we're planning for that. So that's why we've been deliberate with that guidance. But if there's upside to be had, we'll take it.
Great. And just the second one in terms of the GoSee cost optimization. So AUD 1 million benefit in the second half. Obviously, you get the annualization of that into FY 2026. How should we think about the remainder of the cost-out? Is that a kind of simple cost-out opportunity?
So should we be expecting to get the majority of that benefit in FY 2026 with a little bit to come in FY 2027 or a little bit more evenly spread?
Hey, Tim. It's Layton here. Look, that will be implemented in the sort of next month, and the full benefit of that will come flow through into FY 2026. So, like I said, the AUD 1 million will be realized in the second half of this year, and then the full impact realized in FY 2026.
Fantastic. Thanks, guys.
Your next question comes from Wei-Weng Chen with RBC Capital Markets.
Hey there. How are you?
Hi. Hi. Good, good. Okay. A couple of questions for me. So Webjet does well when there's competition. So I guess to what extent do you feel your share of international bookings going up is driven by increased competition in international and decreased competition in domestic?
Or is it more Webjet-driven initiatives that have kind of driven that outcome?
It's definitely our initiatives that we're driving for the international. We're focused on it. We are deliberately targeting international air flights. And that increase in competition and the falling air prices, that's really helpful to us. That means we can do great campaigns around offer pop to Fiji or Thailand. And the European and American early birds have been fantastic for us. One of the things we did in this half was a campaign with Melbourne Airport, and that was all about long-haul international flights. And that was really successful for us. So it is definitely as a result of our focus on driving up those international bookings. As mentioned, our history is domestic. We do that really well.
We deliver the Mix & Match proposition excellently for people so they can fly up on Jetstar and fly back on Virgin and save lots of money and do it on one ticket and one website so you don't have to bounce around all the place. It's that choice and the convenience. Our challenge is to transfer that to another category. Now, this is not a huge leap, international to domestic. So it's definitely a focus. And you'll see that if you're driving around town, you'll see all our billboards about international and our Bundle & Save. So it's a core focus, and that is what's driving the international bookings up. And the extra competition, the falling prices is good for us.
Yeah. Okay. Thanks. And then, I guess you flagged in an earlier answer that you're active and open to M&A right now.
I guess the last couple of B2C acquisitions haven't necessarily been that great, and I'm referring to ZUJI and Online Republic. So I guess before you start acquiring, it'd be good to understand, I guess, what you feel the lessons learned are from those acquisitions.
Yeah. Great question, and I think the business has spent a lot of time doing what we call the PIR, post-implementation review. What are the lessons learned? What are the lessons to take forward, and myself personally, I've done a lot of M&A in my career. And I've sold some dogs. I've bought some dogs, and I've also sold and bought some winners. So I think as a team, we've had a very clear conversation around that, and that's why we've delivered a bit of an outline and a bit of a playbook for how we're thinking about that.
And we're active in that space right now. So we're being very commercially disciplined. We will be focused on something that really leverages our key strategic assets or adds to them. When I come back to it, I think about our huge member base and all the people who follow us and the people who interact with our brand and know our brand. Our trust and awareness is very, very high. So anything that we acquire or work with needs to leverage that asset and be able to add value to that. So we'll be very commercially disciplined. We've, I think, shared some of your views, but that's not lost on this management or the last management. Everyone's very aware of that. And I think we'll be focused commercially, strategically aligned, and it'll have to be strategically accretive.
And I'll leave that one there in terms of commenting on the previous acquisitions. I think there's lots of different views on those ones.
Okay. Cool. And then just on GoSee. So the broader cruise market's actually pretty strong at the moment. That's the business you closed down during COVID in GoSee. So how much of an impact do you think that has had on the business? And is there a view that you could maybe restart a cruise business within GoSee?
Yeah. Sure. Obviously, before my time, but in talking with previous management, that cruise division was shut down for very good reasons and commercially sensible decision, looking back on it and at the time, I believe. Cruise is a difficult one. Have you ever been on a cruise?
I have not. Sorry.
Neither had I until very recently. For my mother-in-law's 70th, we all went off on a cruise. The business model for cruises, right, sells a base ticket, the room price, and then all the money is made on board. It's all in your food and entertainment and everything on board. That's where those delicious drink packages. That's where all the money is made. The other thing that they do on there is they sell you the next one. You get 25% off, and their sales on board is really strong. That is why cruise is such a direct model. So it's hard to clip a ticket on that. That said, you're not wrong. Cruise is back, and there are people retailing that really well. As I said, nothing is off the table for us in terms of growth or M&A.
We're focused on we've got the number one travel marketplace, supermarket, if you will, in Australia, New Zealand. What else do people want to buy in this supermarket? We're making sure that we've got all the aisles covered.
Yeah. And maybe just to clarify the question as well. So within that 12 million that the business used to do of EBITDA, do you have an idea of how much cruise was of that 12?
Yeah. The cruise was actually, if I recall, correct me if I'm wrong, but it was actually $3 million on top of the 12. So the total take from that business pre-COVID was 15 million.
Yep. That's correct, Katrina.
Okay. Thanks for that.
Okay. Thank you. All right. I think we've got time for two more questions. Who have we got next on the list?
Your next question comes from Belinda Moore with Morgans.
Hi, Belinda.
How are you?
Yeah. Good. Thank you. Hi, Katrina and Layton. And thanks for a great presentation today. Wonderful to see decisive and quick action on GoSee. Maybe if I can just sort of check on the numbers a bit more. So we've done 200,000 today. If we thought there was no improvement in the second half, there's another 200,000. Do we add the one million of cost savings? So EBITDA in 2025 is 1.4. And then in 2026, you've got the additional 3 million of savings. So do we see in the 2026 result more of sort of a 4.4 million EBITDA? And again, that's assuming sort of no sort of real improvement in the underlying operating environment. Am I thinking about that correctly?
Yeah. Belinda's waiting here. Yeah. That's a good way to think about it. I think, obviously, we want to see more improvement than that.
But absolutely, with those cost takeout and the business tracking the way it is today, that's directionally the way to think about it.
Fantastic. Thank you.
Thanks, Belinda.
Your next question comes from Bob Chen with J.P. Morgan.
Hey. Morning, guys. Just a couple of questions for me. Just on the member-only deals, I think it seems like there's some good early progress. Can you talk a little bit about conversion and how that's either accretive to your margins or your sort of booking volumes as well?
Yeah. We've seen significant lift-up in the bookings when we're doing a member-only deal. It's a funny thing about urgency, isn't it? If you tell people it's limited, people are pretty excited about it.
I think it's a pretty well-known truism in Australia and New Zealand that if you want to get a great flight, then you want to go early on the deal. So the fact that we open these up to members first or it's a member-only is encouraging people sort of to sign in or sign up, becoming a new member of Webjet. So we're pretty pleased with it. The conversion rate is pretty competitive. It is sensitive data, so I won't share the details. But we're really pleased with the early results. We think this is going to be a solid arm of growth for us.
Okay. Great. And then maybe just on the interest income line, I think, Layton, you mentioned that we're expecting some positive interest income into the second half. What sort of interest rate are you expecting to get on that cash balance?
Look, I don't want to go into specifics around rates, but it is fairly competitive, and we're keeping that cash, so it's at our disposal. So yeah, it'll be relatively meaningful interest income coming through in the second half. So a big sort of flip from what we've seen historically just with those intercompany interest charges. And yeah, that's probably all I can share on the interest.
Thank you. I'll now hand back to Ms. Barry for closing remarks.
Fantastic. Well, we're bang on 10:00 A.M., team. So hopefully, that was an informative session for you. I guess the final thing I'd say is, look, we're really pleased with this result given this environment.
Our brilliant team are pretty focused on where we go to now, and we think we're pretty well poised to make the most of the opportunity that this merger brings, which is all about growth into FY 2026 and beyond. So thanks so much for your time today, everybody. And we look forward to speaking with you again in the future.