Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us today to the Lagardère Q3 2023 revenue. I'm Emmanuel Rapin, Head of Financial Communication, and I will be guiding you through this presentation. The conference is led today by Arnaud Lagardère, Chairman and CEO of Lagardère SA, Sophie Stabile, Group CFO, Dag Rasmussen, the Chairman and CEO of Lagardère Travel Retail, and Nathalie Houël, the Group CFO of Hachette Livre. After the presentation, we will have a Q&A session. Please click on the Ask a Question tab at the top right of your screen, and I will be reading questions from financial analysts only. Now, I will leave the floor to Arnaud Lagardère.
Thank you, Emmanuel, and good afternoon to all of you. Before leaving the floor to Sophie, let me just say very briefly that as you could see on the press release, we still have a very good positive momentum, especially for travel retail. But also publishing shows strong resilience in a little bit more difficult environment. But as you know, Q4 is where we make most of the year, result-wise, I mean, so we'll see what happens, but we're still very very confident about this year. You're not aware, obviously, of the budgets, but we will beat our internal budget this year, which is a great satisfaction for us. Sophie, I'll leave the floor to you, and we'll get back for the Q&A.
Good evening, everyone. Thank you, Arnaud. Thank you for joining us. I will take you through the highlight of the company's performance. Lagardère Group followed a remarkable growth trajectory in 2023. The Q3 revenue by 9.6% like-for-like, and over the first nine months, revenue is up 15.3%. This growth was driven by our two main businesses. First, Lagardère Publishing maintained a robust level of activity despite less dynamic markets. Second, Lagardère Travel Retail achieved a historic quarterly revenue on the back of an exceptional summer tourist season. Let's see how this performance splits. Group revenue grew to EUR 2.2 billion in Q3 2023, which represent a +193 million increment on a like-for-like basis. As you can see on the slide, it was driven by Lagardère Travel Retail's record-breaking revenue over the quarter.
The difference between the like-for-like and reported growth for the group is due to a negative EUR 44 million currency effect, and a positive EUR 83 million scope effect, which includes the acquisition of Marché International by Lagardère Travel Retail in Germany. Now, let's focus on our divisions' performances. Lagardère Publishing maintains a strong level of activity, slightly down by 1.6% on a like-for-like basis, following a very strong Q3 2022. If we look at the activity by segments, the business was driven by continuing demand in illustrated books, especially young adult publication, with the ongoing success of The Captive series by Sarah Rivens, and the success of À contre-sens by Mercedes Ron, which benefited from the Amazon Prime movie adaptation.
General Literature was lifted by bestsellers such as Le Temps des combats by Nicolas Sarkozy and L'Enragé by Sorj Chalandon in France, and also fueled by the popularity of title on social networks, such as Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros in the UK. The good momentum in travel retail continues, supported by the upturn in tourist recovery. The Part works activity is slower, owing to a less dynamic campaign at the beginning of the year than in 2022. Looking into geographies. In France, the activity was down by 5% like-for-like, mainly due to the absence of Guillaume Musso, and backlist and paperback publication compared to previous year. Apart from this effect, and despite the tougher market conditions, illustrated book and general literature perform well.
In the U.K., the activity was strong at 5.6% like-for-like, in a slightly growing market, driven by the young adult segment and a strong backlist. In a slower market, the U.S. was down by 5.2% like-for-like, due to a softer release calendar and the lack of top-selling references like Verity by Colleen Hoover last year. Finally, Spain benefited from the peak of the cycle of the school reforms for primary education, while Mexico is lifted by its trade activity. Moving on to Lagardère Travel Retail. Q3 was historic quarter for Lagardère Travel Retail at almost EUR 1.4 billion of revenue. This represent a 17.7% increase on a like-for-like basis versus 2022. I would like to highlight the hard work of the team, their commercial initiatives and operational efforts to meet our customer expectation were outstanding over the quarter.
In this context, all our geographies performed very well. This is due to a dynamic intra-European market on the back of an exceptional summer performance. The activity in France, up 10.8%, was boosted by the performance in regional airports such as Marseille and Nice, thanks to a touristic season that has stretched into September. The EMEA region benefited from the European international traffic, especially from American tourists, with a strong performance in Italy, up 30.6%, and Poland, 18.4%. In North America, the activity profits from the return of Asian passengers, especially in Canada, with up 27.5%. Finally, in Asia Pacific, the activity is back, up 45.7%, following the reopening of China and with a favorable comparison basis versus 2022. Let's dig into the division's different activities.
Globally speaking, this quarter confirms the strong dynamic of the year. The activity is driven by a strong performance in duty-free and food services in the EMEA region. Overall, the food services segment now represent 27% of the Q3 2023 activity, versus 23% last year, thanks to our M&A integration in Germany and Dubai. The food service and travel essentials also gained from the leisure traffic in the US. Let's move on to other activities. The total revenue for the quarter is EUR 56 million, down 6.6%, like-for-like. A few point to be highlighted. News is down by 7% due to a softer advertising market and the impact from the non-publication of the JDD for six weeks. Lagardère Live Entertainment is down 9% versus Q3 2022, following an exceptional programming in the summer 2022.
Overall, Lagardère Group is on a strong revenue growth trajectory. We continue to focus our efforts to secure our leadership position in our various businesses, including our M&A integration capability. In an uncertain environment, we remain confident in our ability to maintain a high level of results. Despite pressure on costs, Lagardère Publishing should maintain relatively similar performances to last year. Lagardère Travel Retail, in a normalized environment as global traffic continues to recover, has potential for revenue and profitability growth, meeting LEAP initiatives. Many thanks for your attention. We are now available to answer your questions.
Okay. The first question comes from Julien Roch , and questions come about what is the trend for Q4 for both travel retail and publishing? M. Dag will start with the trends.
Yes. Hello, Julien. Hello, everybody. So, the trends are, as you have seen, fairly good. We are for the month of July, we were at +16 versus 19, +10 in August, and +14 in September, which gives the average of 13.2 for the quarter. We would imagine this trend continues throughout the year, give or take. We don't have any indication that this would change. I'm challenging the teams every day to see whether there is any change in trend. We don't see it. So far so good.
I will take then the question from Adrien de Saint-Hilaire, on, Bank of America. I think it comes a little bit, the same way, as usual, Julien Roch . And, just to complete, the picture is, there is a slowdown between Q3 and Q2, and, what about, the Q4, maybe? So if you can continue, Dag, on that before, we y es, the Q4 trend, why there is a, slowing y eah down effect?
So actually, there's no slowdown. You have to have in mind that these figures are compared to 2022. Q1 2022, you had Omicron, which was really strong. You had China completely closed down. To understand the dynamics of travel retail, it's better to compare to 2019, which is what I did with Julien's question. So we don't see any slowdown of the trend for the time being.
Thank you. So maybe it's Nathalie then, that is going to address the question about the trends for book publishing.
Yes, thank you. For Q4, Q4 in France should be slightly better than Q3. As you know, we will have an Astérix album, L'Iris blanc, which will be released in end of October. We will also have some strong releases, such as the memoirs of Britney Spears, published by Lattès in France. Lastly, young adult segment should remain at a high level. In the UK, we should have a nice Q4, too. Actually, UK still benefits from the huge success of the backlist titles that are popular on social networks. They will also benefit from a new release in the series, Heartstopper Volume 5 , in December. In the US, it's still difficult, of course, in a sluggish market.
After jumping into market, there is one specific question of Julien Roch on more the governance. So the question is the following: post the put that will take place in December, Vivendi should have between 70% and 80% of the company. How will the board involved then? How many people can Vivendi nominate on the board at the next AGM? We have Pauline Hauwel, who will respond.
Well, you need to keep in mind, the put is only an option, so, Vivendi indeed could reach, up to 80% of the share capital, but it's, just an option. And regarding, how the board would evolve, I would just refer to the public statement made to Vivendi as part of the, of the public offer. They say they might seek a representation, at the level of their sharing the capital. So, but still, as the company will remain listed, there might still need to be an independent director sitting on the board.
I think there was some question about Christophe Cherblanc about the dynamic of book publishing on the Q4, and I think it was addressed already by Nathalie, especially the fact that we have several great release on the Q4. There was a question about what is the estimated debt at the end of December 2023, in term of lending, and especially after the potential The acquisition of Tastes on the Fly.
The level of the debt at the end of December should be roughly at the same level at the end of June, including Tastes on the Fly.
Okay. If I read well, I think we have covered all the question. We can wait a few seconds to see if something's pop up on my screen, but right now, I think we have covered the trends, covered the of activities at the end of the year financing. So I think, Arnaud, we have covered everything.
Yeah, Emmanuel, I think I can conclude. I mean, the conclusion will be straight and quite easy. I think, well, you know, in this crazy world, you never know what could happen, but, as Dag said, "So far, so good." Whether it's for travel retail, or publishing, or Lagardère News. We are heading to another record level in terms of for the company, higher than last year. Probably if we compare the activities, the perimeter, definitely a record year. We worked on—we are working on a strategic plan that we will present to the board next week. We will present also to the board a financial budget for the next five years.
More details for next year, and the forecast looks great, really great. We are very optimistic about the future. Maybe to complete also the question of Julien Roch and the answer that correctly Pauline gave. There will be no change in the top management and the integrity of the company, meaning the three divisions, travel, retail, publishing, and news will stay as they are. We have some money definitely to make acquisitions, significant acquisitions, but if we need to make a more even bigger one, we'll be very happy to have the support of Vivendi, but we don't have any in mind as of today.
Again, you know, without any acquisition, we can deliver a substantial growth for the next five years, which is a luxury that we know we have, and we don't want to spoil it. Thank you so much for the whole company, first of all, for those numbers. Thank you for you, dear analysts, and we'll talk to you very soon. Thank you so much. Bye-bye.