Warm thank you for the introduction and also warm welcome everyone to this quarter one presentation. We will start up with an agenda for today where we will give a short introduction. Then Anders and myself will go through the Q1 summary, and then we will have an outlook going forward for the company. Let's start with the introduction then on page four then. This is SkiStar. For you who haven't been with us before, we are Scandinavian company working with ski resorts, and we have a turnover of around SEK 3 billion. Last winter season when we made a survey, 92% of our guests were very satisfied with our operations, why we also feel extremely confident with the upcoming winter season.
We have roughly around 2,500 employees, and many of these employees are seasonal coworkers, and they're coming back year after year, and around 60% of the staff is coming back this year. Normally, the seasonal staff works around two and a half seasons on average. We have an important role to play as an employer here since many of these persons have the first job, and we have then a huge responsibility as an employer to take care of all these young, fantastic people. Our market share in Scandinavia is around 40%, and that is connected to the SkiPass sales. Last winter season, we had 51% of the SkiPass sales in Sweden and 17% in Norway. The Norwegian business was hard hit last year.
Normally, you can say we have a solid market share around 30%, and that turns out to be up to around 45% for the Scandinavian market share. Alpine skiing is our main and core business where we make most of our revenue from. I will soon come back to our business model. Before that, we will just take the next page and take you through our history. The company was founded 46 years ago. Of course, we were super satisfied by being introduced on the stock exchange in 1994. Two very important years for us is year 2000 when skistar.com was registered and also the starting point of today's business model and how we are proudly working on the business model.
The next year, which is extremely important for us, is 2005, where we acquired Scandinavia's second-largest ski resort in Trysil, Norway, which completed our five largest destinations in Scandinavia. Today we run Sälen, Åre and Vemdalen in Sweden and Trysil and Hemsedal in Norway. Next page, please. If we look into our business model, we are very satisfied about this because many of you maybe think about slopes and lifts and so on, and of course that's super important for us. Most important for us is skistar.com and our business model and how we work with that. Today we have around 32 million visits either on the website or on our app, where the customer go in to skistar.com, where they start to look after accommodation or a hotel.
They start to book different type of activities. It could be ski school, it could be a ski pass, or when we talk about services, it could be about cleaning, insurance, et cetera. We really try to work close to our customers. We have a sophisticated CRM system today, and we are investing even more going forward in a CRM system to come even closer to our customers and becoming stronger within this business model. Next page, please. We take next one as well. As a summary then of the first quarter, you can say that we have a very interesting situation about the weather since we were able to start producing snow very early. When the cold weather hit us, it's very positive.
When the level is below -2, it's even better because then we can produce snow in a lot of volume. We started to do that early, earlier than ever before. That also led to an extremely early opening of our ski resorts, all at the same time, December 3rd, with extremely good conditions. That makes it very promising for the upcoming season. Of course, this is our smallest quarter as you can see from a revenue perspective, it's actually one of the strongest from a booking perspective. Today we are proudly presenting all-time high booking level of +13% compared to the 2018-19 season, which was the latest season where we were running our resorts in a full operation and also our latest record season.
This is extremely promising, and we are very satisfied about these numbers. We're also proud to present the +27% in our retail business, and it's mainly driven by a very strong online sales with +34%. As you saw on the previous picture where we showed the business model, we are really trying to take ownership of as many businesses as possible across our resorts. During this quarter, we were able to make an acquisition of a Sport Lodgen, three units in Trysil in Norway. That means that we were strengthening our, the sports stores and the retail stores also in Trysil and in Norway, and gives us a better control of that market as well.
I'm also very glad that we have now got personnel and organization in place for our new hotel division, which is of course super important for us now going forward into this new segment. By that, I would like to hand over to Anders. Sorry, I have one more picture, next picture about sustainability. We're also very glad that we are continuing our focus within the sustainability area. It's in the three areas of activity and recreation, and the ecosystem and climate change part, and also the dialogue and interaction. We have made progress in all the three areas.
What's really promising in this report actually is that we have got a very good rating from the CDP and the ESG organization. We have got a good recognition and got a B score there, which is very good for the first time ever. Something we're really happy about as well. By that, I hand over for next page and to my colleague, Anders Örnulf, who will guide you through the economic numbers.
Thank you, Stefan. If we move into page ten then, before commenting on the first quarter results, we would like to give a background on the financial development, starting with the revenues. Some of you have seen this graph before, I'm sure, but still it's important to show that SkiStar has had a strong growth before the pandemic, and we hope to start over again and go forward with the 2018-2019 season as a base. Main reason behind the development are a good effect of the underlying volume increase and smarter pricing and differentiating of the SkiPass. When analyzing revenues of SkiStar, it's important that with effect from Q2, 2020/2021 season, so last season, all payments from SkiStar's customers for accommodation are recognized as revenue. The payment to accommodation owners are recognized as an operating expense underlying goods for resale.
No effect on profit, but inflated figures for revenue, approximately half a billion Swedish krona in a normalized year. It also explains why one does not see a major trend in connection with the corona outbreak in March and April 2020. Moving to page 11, we see a graph that shows historical development of EBIT and EBIT margin, along with the figure for 12-month rolling. Main reason behind the historical profit development are a good effect of underlying volume increase and smarter and differentiated pricing of, again, SkiPass. This is also the lever in SkiStar business model historically. A couple of years with a good effect of underlying volume increase and smarer. You see that directly on the profit side then.
A couple of years with a high pace of exploitation projects, capital gains at levels around SEK 150 million. It's also a great effect on the EBIT line and the margin. Even if the curve points downwards, we are extremely pleased that we have a positive result and strong EBITDA at the time with our industry suffering badly from the pandemic. Of course, it's impossible to parry the full loss of revenue, but we are maintaining a profit, a strong profit. Going into page 12 then, diving into the first quarter. As you can understand, Stefan already told you that the first quarter is very quiet for SkiStar. A lot of operational focus on starting the winter season in a safe way. Three takeaways on the revenue side.
Number 1, Stefan mentioned the strong development for the retail business. Fantastic last Black Week sales, and now we're looking forward to the physical sale in connection with the winter season at the resort. Number 2, we now have a hotel and lodge business that is operational. It's barely been up and running in Q1, but still it generates revenues, and you can see that with the +30 column. Also slower pace in property development explains the SEK -49 million. As we normally comment on SkiStar, more of a timing effect than nothing else. It's planned. Moving into page 13. 13 then, sorry. You can follow the changes in EBIT by segment. Worth mentioning in a quiet quarter is that we have had a cold November and we've been up earlier with the snow production compared to previous year.
This is the main explanation to the core business difference, operational mountain resorts. In property development, we have a smaller capital gains, as I mentioned, but we are consolidating a better result from our joint ventures. Finally, our hotel and lodge business have an even higher seasonal variation than other parts of SkiStar, which explains the SEK -32 million. We have some profit to make up for when the lifts open, but we already know that. Page 14 of the cash flow statement. Very satisfying for us to see the cash flow statement for the first quarter. We got a very positive effect from the underlying demand that Stefan talked about, along with the behavior of booking and paying for the holiday earlier and earlier. It is of course, very favorable for SkiStar that our guests prioritize and secure the winter holiday so early.
That's unique to our industry. It also gives us both self-confidence and financing for future investments. If we look at the cash flow from investing activities, it's a sign that we are currently investing a little bit lower than normal due to the pandemic. A summary on page 15 then. Despite the very challenging time, SkiStar is in a strong financial position and with a positive cash flow that gives us all the opportunities we need. Balance sheet is still strong with an equity ratio of 44%, excluding IFRS 16 debt. Net debt is fine, and our liquidity forecast is better than ever, partly due to last year's transactions and, in general, responsible actions linked to the pandemic. We have invested around SEK 150 million for this coming winter season.
Things are slowly getting back to normal, even though we know that it can get worse before it comes completely normal again. Stefan will talk more about our plans and coming investments further on right now, moving into page 16 and forward.
Thank you, Anders. Then we will just round off this call around the strong winter season ahead. As I mentioned, and also Anders mentioned, we have all-time high booking level. It's plus 13% compared to the 2018-2019 season, the pre-COVID season, where we also had the record in bookings. It's also amazing to see the cash flow coming in from the early bookings. We are super glad to have this experience now for being running our operations in two winter and two summer season, which create these COVID-adapted safety precautions. That we can see that again, 92% of our guests feel very safe at our destinations. All the destinations are open since December third, and we have seen a very strong demand.
We have seen good visitation. Of course, now when we open up our sixth hotel in this particular time, we open up the new SkiStar Lodge Hundfjället, which is a great, amazing hotel or lodge where we have 150 rooms plus and 800 beds just next to the slope and ski in, ski out facilities, and really appreciated by the visitors who have already been there and tried it. We're really looking forward to have that in our portfolio. Lastly but not least, we can see that we now open up for investments again after a period of a little bit more safely or a little bit more cautious investment periods.
Now we open up, and we will do one big thing here in Stockholm, where we open up SkiStar Stockholm and a place called Hammarbybacken, where we earlier only have had that for winter season. There we open up now for year-round, and we will invest in this great area and invite the population of Stockholmers to come and visit us and have an active holiday or active day visiting SkiStar Stockholm. We will also start to invest in new lifts. After a period of very low investments in new lifts, we will start again, and we will do two new lifts in Åre or one replacement of one lift and then one completely new lift in Åre. It's very satisfying to announce that message today.
Of course, we will continue to invest in snow production, and we will continue to invest in the system, making us as the leading tour operator for Scandinavia. By that, we would like to stop and open up for the Q&A session.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question for the speakers, please press zero and one on your telephone keypad. The first question is from Adela Dezső, Handelsbanken. Your line is now open.
Yes. Good morning, everyone. My first question relates to the booking trend for the upcoming winter season. You just disclosed that bookings are 13% higher than the pre-pandemic year. From what I remember, that is a 2% decline from what you reported after Q4. Could you please give us any details on what has caused the decline? Is it mostly international guests canceling or what is really going on behind this new figure?
It's quite easy to explain. You know, normally at this time of the year, we maybe show 1%-2% plus, because the number of filled beds getting reduced, as close you come to the season. To have a booking situation as we have now with double digits is extremely strong. When we close the reading of our booking numbers 8 days ago or 10 days ago, it was at this extremely high level. Normally we have around 80% of our season booked at this time of the year, and now we have 90% booked. It's an extremely high number.
It can create some confusion, but it's absolutely amazing booking number to have +13% at this time of the year. We can see that our guests are booking earlier than before, and they're also booking much further ahead than they normally book at this time of the year. Normally, maybe we only have bookings at the February break, but now you can see that many guests are booking even beyond that, even up to spring and Easter season. That creates the extremely strong booking numbers. It's actually no decline of booking numbers. It's the opposite. It's an extremely strong number.
The 15% figure that you reported after Q4, that was comparable to what it was at that time.
Correct.
in 2020. Okay.
Correct.
Got it.
Yeah.
Okay. Makes sense. Could you then also maybe talk a little bit more about your expectations for Norway? Because, we all know in media that restrictions are starting to get a bit harsher there. If you could give us any kind of details on the booking trends specifically for your Norwegian ski resorts or your expectations there, that would be great.
Thank you. The Norwegian business at the moment is on par with the record booking season of 2018-19, and the growth is mainly coming from the Swedish business. However, we are very glad actually to talk about that we have operated our destinations in a safe manner the last two summers and the last two winters. We feel very comfortable that we have the experience, we have the leadership, and we have the organization to continue to run our operations in a good manner. When you talk about restrictions for Norway, I think media are very happy to talk about all bad things happening. For our guests, it's quite simple. You show your COVID pass, and then when you enter one of our destinations, you take a quick test.
That quick test you can either buy with you and bring it from Sweden or Denmark, where you come from, or you go into one of the test centers which is located in either Trysil or Hemsedal, or you buy a test at one of our sports shops. It's very simple and very easy. I think we try to tell our guests by sending them direct emails about what is the rules and regulation for visiting Sweden and Norway at this time of the season.
That sounds like you can compare it to the last winter season, that it will be easier to enter Norway this year than it was last year, from Sweden and-
Yeah. Yeah, last year the borders were closed. This year they are open.
Great. Okay. Also a bit more about the seasonal variations when it comes to your hotel operations. Obviously, it's a bit difficult to forecast given the lack of historical figures. How should we interpret the results for Q1 in this specific segment and also going forward?
Yeah. As you say, it's difficult to analyze since it's new business for us. We're in it for the long run. It's long rental contracts with SkiStar, so we're trying to learn. We try to find the correct operational model for the business. We knew that Q1 is gonna be struggling and it's also, I can imagine that it's gonna be a tough year for the hotel lodges in Norway, in general. We'll see. We're confident that we'll do it in a good way for SkiStar, but I will not try to guess how it's gonna look like after Q2.
We knew we're gonna have a tough start, but now that we're fully open and our lifts are running, it will be better for sure.
I would assume that the plan is for more hotels to open. Yeah, I'm sure you have a lot more in the pipeline for the future in order to grow this segment, correct?
Absolutely. That's more of a timing and.
Yeah.
As you understand the development. We will come back to that.
I would like to just highlight one other thing compared to your previous question, Adela, and that was also from a regulation perspective. I mean the big difference this year compared to last year is that the most people are vaccinated compared to last year as well. We were able to run our operations without any people vaccinated last year. Now a lot of people are vaccinated, so of course that's a huge difference compared to our previous.
Right. Of course. I just have one final question, and that is about the closing of the St. Johann transaction. How's that going?
Yeah. I mean, it takes a longer time than we expected, and we really hope that we can close it as, yeah, as soon as possible, but it goes in the right direction.
We should include it for the upcoming winter season in our estimates?
I really don't hope so. I really hope that we can close it, in a short period of time.
Okay. Okay, great. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question is from Kolojan Pumoteak, GMB Markets. Your line is now open.
Yes. Good morning, Stefan and Anders. Just a couple of questions from me as well, please. Coming back to the pandemic impact, which I think everybody is struggling with for the moment, and I think you talked a little about it in a good way. Just to get a feel for it, if we ended up in the kind of negative scenario that borders close down again and all the guests that are now looking to come to you are not able to visit you for one reason or another, you've been able to build more flexibility into your business model because I saw in the statement you were talking about scenario analysis and having different kind of measures to implement if different kind of things happen.
Have you been able to create some sort of extra flexibility in this year compared to earlier years?
Yeah, I think it is a lot of speculation. We're talking about closed borders. For the first time there is not even a discussion about closing borders between the Norwegian and Nordic countries. I think that's a very important statement since there is a lot more collaboration between the Nordic countries. I think that's a very clear statement from us. Our guests have entered both Sweden and Norway, and the big number of guests are entering our business now, and they're doing that in a good manner, in good way. Again, there is no discussions about closing any borders. Then to answer your question about flexibility. I mean, again, Sweden has a booking record and Norway is on par with 18-19 season.
I mean, we were open and were able to run our operations last winter as well. As long as there is no closed borders, we don't see any clouds on the sky actually. I think it's too much speculations.
I agree with you. I guess you must have learned from being forced to basically then close down at the end of the season two years ago and then part of last year to have better flexibility also in the underlying business model to be able to balance if these kind of things that you obviously can't control yourself happens.
Absolutely. We learned a lot from last year because when we moved into the winter season, we understood that it's gonna be a tough year with no international guests for Norway. As you said, we learned a lot how to run those two resorts as efficiently as possible with only Norwegian skiers. Yeah, we learned a lot, but we have action plans for different scenarios. As Stefan said, it's a completely different story this year than last year.
Follow on to that. When this operation that you now acquired in Trysil, the sports retail operation, what kind of revenue would that operation have in a normal year?
Around NOK 40 million.
Excellent. When you're now looking to come back with, say, a renewed investment focus, could you give us some idea about the size of the investment you're looking to do in Åre and what kind of time duration when you believe that this will be in place?
It's a different story. I think now Stefan highlighted the biggest one in this presentation. It's difficult to give you the exact figures, but if Hammarbybacken, we are investing and try to open up everything in this summer 2022, and for Åre next coming winter season, so 2022, 2023. I think on amounts we'll come back to that when we know exactly what we're gonna do.
Excellent. When I look at the exploitation portfolio highlight, that was a bit of a, it's not the same kind of volumes obviously coming through in your exploitation operation. When do you feel that you are back on track there again? Is this year expected to be a slow year for you in total, or is there a pent-up opportunity for the coming quarters?
Me or...
Yeah.
You can take it, Anders Örnulf.
Maybe slow is the wrong word, even if I was the one saying that, because I think it's more of the record levels we had 2017, 2018, 2019 of around 150, 170 for that business area. I don't think that will come back at those levels coming years, but it's gonna be a big part of our EBIT going forward. It's gonna be a strong year in the property development this season as well. I cannot give you a figure, but not record level of course, but it's gonna be substantial for the profit.
If I understand it right, you have both projects in Åre and Sälen that is coming into harvesting during the season already.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Excellent.
In Hemsedal as well, we have a big project going on.
One final from me. I notice, Anders, the IFRS 16 impact obviously increased with the hotel operations coming in. Do I understand it right that the impact on the financial net is around SEK 9 million from that, up from SEK 4 million before? Or because that's all I think is described as a delta same change or something.
Exactly. That's the change. You're absolutely right, Kolojan.
Excellent. Thank you very much. Good luck with the management of the season, and good to hear that you're open and with good snow production in all areas. Sounds promising.
Thanks.
We have a follow-up question from Adela Dezső. Your line is now open again.
Yes. Just to follow up on the comments about the development in Norway. Stefan, did you say that the Norwegian booking trend is on par with the 2018-2019 winter season?
Yes, correct.
Thanks.
There are no further questions. I would like to hand back to the gentlemen for some closing remarks.
No, thank you so much for listening to our call, and we are looking forward for a strong winter ahead. It looks really promising. We had a great day yesterday where a lot of guests were checking in at our destinations. On Wednesday, we will have a large proportion of guests coming in as well. We're really looking for a promising winter season where a lot of our guests like to spend the time outdoors in the fresh air and with an active holiday. Thank you so much for listening to our call.