Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Dufry's Q1 2022 Trading Update Conference Call and Live Webcast. I'm Moira, the Chorus Call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Mr. Julián Díaz, CEO of Dufry. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much for the introduction, operator. With me here today, I have CFO Yves Gerster, and also Dufry's Designated CEO, Xavier Rossinyol. As in previous calls, we are going to use for the presentation the report disclosed this morning in our website. Let's move first to slide two for commenting on the agenda. We are going to start with the group highlights, commenting also on trading updates. Finally, I will pass through Yves for commenting on financial update and we will comment on on some issues that regards the outlook that Xavier will introduce all of you, and myself will finish with the conclusions.
If we start with the presentation in slide four, group highlights, I think it's very important to comment that turnover evolution speaks for itself with improvement since February and a strong uptake, especially since March. Turnover reach CHF 1,180.6 million, with an organic growth of 144.5% positive in Q1 2022 compared with 2021, providing confidence in the overall upwards trend. Positive trend has so far continued in April with +176.2% organic growth and reaching the mark of CHF 500 million sales since the pandemic started first time. The situation in May is also accelerating compared with April.
Equity free cash flow reached CHF -86.8 million, meaningful improvement from our Q1 2020 and 2021 performances of CHF -483 million and CHF -219 million. Over 960 shops are open globally by the end of March 2021, representing around 85% of the shops, but these stores represent around 90% of sales capacity versus 2019. We are expecting by May 31, 94% of the sales capacity reopen, and by the end of June, 94% of the sales capacity, and by end of June, 96% of the sales capacity. Most important stores during these two months will be completely open with only a few closed in selected locations, mostly in Asia Pacific.
Uptake in commercial activity since beginning of the year with various attractive and relevant locations added to our concession portfolio with 21,915 square meters of new and extended contracts. For example, Mexico City new airport, Sofia in Bulgaria, Dominican Republic, Bali in Indonesia, Brazil, Finland and the U.S. If we move to slide five for commenting on obviously organic growth evolution. Most regions globally contributed to positive evolution, this is in slide six, during Q1, and in April, the situation was even improved. In Q1, as I mentioned, we reached 144.5% organic growth, and in April 176.2%, compared always with the same period of last year.
If we compare February year to date and April year to date, Dufry's turnover has more than doubled, especially in EMEA, progress with improving health situation and the increasing easing of travel protocols. This includes very good performance in Turkey, Greece, and Middle East, but also in U.K., France, Spain, Eastern Europe and Africa. All this made significant progress. Looking at the Americas, Central America and Caribbean, as well as the U.S., continued to trend above the group average. The regional performance also started to accelerate in South America operations, especially led by Argentina, Colombia and Ecuador. For information, FX impact on turnover stood at -1.5% versus 2021, mainly related to the devaluation of Euro and British Pound versus Swiss franc.
If we look at the regional performance in slide eight, the regional net sales split mirrors the current travel patterns and show Europe, Middle East and Africa contributing with 46.1%, Asia Pacific with 2% and the Americas with 49.5% of total sales. Global distribution centers accounted for 2.4% of Q1 2022 net sales. We are reaching a more normalized level as Hainan is now being supplied by our local joint venture with Alibaba in China. Increase in contribution from duty-free segment related to uptake in intra-regional and intercontinental travel. Another sign of normalization of global traveling is the duty-free reaching 62.2% compared with 49% of sales in Q1 2021. Now let's move to page nine.
Important slide as we show there the monthly evolution for all regions as well as for our best performing locations. On the left hand, you see the bounce back of the group level, as well as across EMEA and Americas, now standing at all-time high since the pandemic started. The Americas trade already at 83% from 2019 levels. Looking at our best performing regions on the right hand side of this slide, Central America and Caribbean, excluding the cruise business, achieve a better performance compared to the pre-crisis with +5.2% in April 2022 versus April 2019. We have seen a strong demand for tourist travel and the recent concession wins and renewals in the region like Mexico, Martinique, French Guiana, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic. All this obviously support our performance going forward.
The U.S. as well as top touristic destinations with EMEA are close to 2019 levels too. Asia Pacific has seen some small improvements with the reopening of our operation in Melbourne. Countries like Australia, Bali, Cambodia, have started to reopen, but other governments in Asia Pacific still adhere to the zero COVID approach or restricted measures which impact the broader region performance. As soon as restrictions are lifted, demand is expected to show a fast rebound as experienced through our other operations globally. Please move now to slide number 10. With close to 2,000 shops open and over 90% of 2019 sales capacity reopened, we are nearly back to normal operations. We are expecting 94% of potential sales capacity reopened in May and 96% in June. Our shops in EMEA and Americas are at 95% sales potential already.
The remaining stores mostly relate to Asia Pacific, as also seen on the previous slide. We have to remain very disciplined on our operation and assessing requirements in regard to staffing closely linked to passenger flows and the reopening of the future shops, as we have done so far. If we move to slide 12, we will comment on channels and category performance. In line with improving health situation and easing of travel protocols, demand for travel, especially traveling abroad, picked up. Visible and significantly improved performance and gain of share of airports, 90% of the share, which are the typical gateway, for example, for holidays locations in the south of Europe, including Mediterranean region and Middle East. It's also relevant, the acceleration of transatlantic travel driven by both business and leisure.
Ferries and cruise lines improve to 2.8% share with cruise ships seeing a gradual restart from a low base. Other channels like border shops, downtown, or hotels were slightly less impacted and came already back last year with 3.3% of share in Q1 2022, and are also supporting the overall positive development. If we move to page 13 for commenting on performance by category, the category mix remains relatively stable compared to full year 2021 and continues to mirror current reopening patterns. Perfume and cosmetics continue to be the prevalent category with 27.1%, followed by food and confectionery, 22%, and wines and spirits with 18.6%. Food and confectionery and convenience products offering, including in this acceleration list, are recovering faster in current environment.
Other core categories as perfume and cosmetics and wines and spirits are also accelerating growth. Within the categories, we are introducing innovative new offerings like Clean Beauty, new brands or vegan or organic option in our convenience and food and beverage offering. We will comment on this in the next slide. In terms of commercial development, page 15, we won or expanded several contracts such as Felipe Ángeles International Airport in Santa Lucía, new airport in Mexico City, Mexico and the Recife International Airport in Brazil. Both additions contribute to our established footprint in the region. La Romana International Airport and seaport in Dominican Republic had a 10-year extension. Another important tourist destination in the renewal of the duty-free concession has been Bali International Airport with six more years.
We also secure a five-year extension of duty-free and duty-paid concession at Helsinki Airport in Finland and ten-year extension at Ontario International Airport in California, which serves more than 5.5 million travelers annually. In the U.S., we also announced a partnership with Starbucks with the first stores planned to open at LaGuardia Airport at the beginning of summer. Please move to page 16 and comment on how to leverage customer insights. I touched already on product innovation with our product categories presentation. Based in a qualitative focus customer insight, we have identified valuable aspects for consumers in travel retail as follows. The interest for brands and products with a strong sustainability proposition, offerings which foster well-being and health, and exclusive premium and on-trendy products.
We have also detected the need to shop in a relaxing or more relaxing, calming environment with qualified staff for those new offerings in this working group research. As a consequence, we have developed some new product propositions, and we have already started to engage new concepts. For example, sustainable product identification system in 171 shops across 120 airports, highlighting those products that are aligned with customers' personal values and which fulfill defined sustainability criteria. Over 550 products were selected for this experience, with positive response amongst customers. We have also started the introduction of healthy and well-being range destination assortments and the design of new sub-concepts with piloting in some locations adapted to the customer's requirements. Let me pass through and hand it over to Yves for the comment for the financial update.
Thank you, Julián. A warm welcome to everyone on the line from my side as well. Before I start with a brief overview of our cash flow performance in Q1 of 2022, I would like to give some personal remarks. I have worked with Julián since I joined Dufry as Treasury Head in 2006, and even more closely in my current role as Chief Financial Officer. It was a great pleasure to work alongside Julián to grow and to shape the company. Undeniably, the last two years have been challenging. Our team's strong commitment and relentless efforts to navigate the difficult environment led by Julián have been impressive. We are now at the point where we can look ahead with confidence. Julián, all the best, and for us, this is only a professional but not a personal farewell.
With Xavier Rossinyol, I have also worked until 2015, and I'm very much looking forward to writing the next chapter of Dufry together. Turning now to slide 18. Equity free cash flow performed robustly and reached CHF -86.8 million in Q1 . This represents a meaningful improvement from our Q1 2020 and 2021 performances of CHF -483.1 million and CHF -219.3 million, respectively. It is even an improvement versus the pre-crisis 2019 levels, where equity free cash flow stood at CHF -123 million. As you can see in the graph, Q1 generally shows cash outflows.
These are related to the seasonality of our business, with strongest turnover in Q 2 and Q 3 as the high season. Inventory build and prior related concession payments in Q1 . Q1 2022 cash flow performance was even ahead of the historical Q1 cash flow performance. This result is positively influenced by the measures we have taken over the last two years, including concession reliefs and tighter cash management, with Q1 2022 also partially benefiting from working capital movements and some phasing of CapEx of around CHF 25 million. Turning to slide 19 on net debt. As of March 2022, our net debt amounted to CHF 3,157.4 million.
This compares to CHF 3.423 billion in March 2019 and to CHF 3.537 billion in March 2020. With that, our net debt is already at a level below March 2019 and even close to December 2019 levels. As already disclosed with our full year 2021 result presentation in March, we have extended our covenant holiday for four quarters until and including June 2023. The next testing will now take place in September 2023. The requirements for September and December 2023 testings are at 5x leverage threshold. For the March 2024 and following testings, we will return to a leverage threshold of 4.5x. Moving to the right side of the slide with our debt maturity profile.
Relevant maturities are only coming up by end of 2024, whereby the revolving credit facility continues to be undrawn. We feel fully comfortable with a well-balanced split of fixed and floating interest on our debt. Currently, close to 80% of our drawn debt has a fixed rate and therefore provides visibility on our interest-related costs. As we return to normal, liquidity is not a concern anymore. As of end of March, we have available liquidity from cash and committed credit lines in excess of CHF 2 billion. Having said that, I'm handing over to Xavier now.
Thank you, Yves. Good afternoon, good morning, everybody. Once more, I'm very happy to be back at Dufry, and I wanna thank all the team and all the stakeholders for the warm welcome. Before I start my slides, I would also like to say that we keep monitoring very closely the situation in Ukraine, and we keep supporting our teams over there. I'm gonna start in slide 21. Since I joined, I have been focusing on the transition with the support of Julián, reconnecting and re-engaging with the entire team, understanding again the organization, especially post COVID-19 crisis.
Visiting all our key operations across the different geographies, and also meeting already with some of the key external stakeholders, like airports, suppliers, and business partners. We also launched a full strategic review. I'm flipping now to page 22. First, I would like to say I'm extremely happy about the passion, the commitment, and the energy of the entire team after two years of very hard situation with all the cost constraints due to COVID. Now is our job to make sure that all this underlying energy is going on the same strategic vision. The new strategic plan is being prepared under three clear principles. Number one is extremely collaborative and participative in the internal teams. We are making sure that there is an open and transparent flow of ideas. Second, is data-driven. It's not based on opinions, it's based on internal and external data driven.
Third, we are trying to do a 360-degree understanding of the situation, which means we are involving not only the management, but also the employees on the shop floor, the consumers, customer, passengers, the airports, and the rest of the suppliers. Now, I'm going to page 23. There are a few examples on what we have already done. We have had interviews with over 60 key people in the organization. This number is gonna go to more than 100. That's basically the management across all the key functions and geographies. Also, we are doing quite a few workshops, non-hierarchical, so with people of all kind of positions with a very transparent approach. We are doing a wide group employee survey, not asking them how they feel about the organization, but asking specifically what we can do to improve our operations.
We are doing a lot of consumer and passenger research. We are talking, as I already said, also to airports and brands. Some initial conclusions is, number one, we still have a very strong core business, which is recovering fast as my colleagues just said. We also need to rebuild the company after the last two years of crisis mode. We need to keep as much as possible the efficiencies we have achieved, especially on the cost, but we also need to reinvest to put back the customer, the passenger, at the center of what we do. Everything starts with the passengers because they are the ones driving the sales. We have to leverage on what we do well, but we also have to change what in some areas.
We will need to create or expand some new skills to become a really disruptive retailer in the near future. On page 24, basically, we are saying we will continue with this strategic review, and we plan to present the new strategy to the equity markets in a capital markets day early September. I wanna finish with, again, big thanks to Julián, for all these years where you gave me new professional opportunities and new professional challenges. Thank you for all what I learned, for all your mentoring.
Also thank you for all the energy you've been putting in the company and how you always have challenged the teams, but also allow the people around you to grow professionally. As he said, we will keep, of course, the personal relationship, but professionally, I have to say big, big thanks for your contribution to the company, but also to me as an individual. Back to you, Julián.
Thank you, Xavier. Thank you very much. Let's finish with the page 25 of the presentation with closing remarks. Three ideas. I think first quarter has seen a strong revenue rebound despite the slow start in January. I think the lowest week was the fourth week of January. If we compare this with the week 19, one week ago, we have multiplied the sales by two, increasing in weekly terms. Organic growth in Q1 has reached 144% compared with 2021, evolving positively in all the regions, including Asia, but it's clear in Asia, still the situation is uncertain. Environment is still fragile, especially in Asia-Pacific, but positive perception about the summer, that, for us, is the high season.
Regarding the cash management already commented on by Yves, Q1 historically due to seasonality is the lowest one. This year, we have been able, due to a combination of initiatives too, including these cost savings, to reach -CHF 86.8 in Q1 2022, compared with - 219 million in Q1 2021, - 483 million in Q1 2020. If we compare with 2019, that was -CHF 123 million. Progressing from the commercial point of view, I think it's very important at the end of March, 90% of the sales capacity reopened. By the end of June, almost 96% of the capacity, sales capacity, based on 2019 sales reopened.
Will facilitate, if the expectation we have about the summer are correct, will facilitate an increase in the sales and an increase in the acceleration of sales. We have signed, and this is something that I would like to remark, during the quarter, 21,915 square meters of commercial space in new contracts and in extended contracts. We are operating today more than any other similar company in the world, 460,000 square meters, that we have been able to protect in terms of trends and contract durations during the pandemic. Extensions reaching maturities of 7.2 years are already signed or in the process to be signed. This is bringing us to the levels of 2019.
We have also progressed, and I want to remark on that, on our ESG strategic initiatives with the four pillars: customer focus, protect environment, employee experience, and trusted partner. Especially, we have progressed significantly in protect environment. Finally, as a personal note, let me also comment on, as is obvious and communicated, end of February, I will step down from my position as Dufry CEO on May 31, 2022. I very warmly will welcome Xavier, that is a very good professional, he's a good person, and also he's a good friend, as the new CEO of the company. He has unique experience and, he has the perfect match to lead the group in this new phase. We have together arranged for a coordinated transition, and this is my final results presentations to you.
I very much like to express my gratitude to all of you, our stakeholders, and particularly to the board of directors at Dufry for the support I have received during all these years. I am immensely grateful for the opportunity I have to lead and contribute to the development of this great group of people. Thank you very much, and from now on, the Q&A is open.
We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question or make a comment may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use only handsets while asking a question. Anyone who has a question or a comment may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Joern Iffert from UBS. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hello, everybody, and thanks for taking my questions. First of all, Julián, thanks a lot, and I wish you really all the best for the future. Maybe three questions, if I may. The first one is a technical one. With the inflationary cost environment you are seeing on wage inflation, input costs, logistics, are you confident to pass it on to your ASP on time, or do you think there's a time lag which could negatively impact the gross profit margin? The second question would be, please, on net new shop openings or space, it's a 1% contribution. We saw a lot of press releases, you won new contracts. It will take some time before this is contributing, but can you also comment, did you lose some contracts, or larger contracts or smaller contracts?
Just if you can comment on this, please, to better understand the dynamics. The last question would be, please, to Xavier. You mentioned Dufry would need to reinvest also to, maybe answer the changes in consumer behavior. Can you give us some more details what areas you are meaning, and also if this could change the financial model on margins or cash flows for a certain time period? Thanks a lot.
Thank you very much, Joern, for your nice words. It has been a great pleasure to work with you too. Regarding the inflation, I think historically, and this is something that can be confirmed with historical data, these type of companies or company has been able to transfer whatever inflation we have in the different countries to the sale prices. Don't forget one thing, not only because the currency, we are natural hedge, we buy and we sell in the same currency, but the local costs are expressed and are denominated, sorry, in local currency in each country. There is a component that is the saving that we have with the domestic markets. As in the domestic market is obvious, we are looking at significant inflation rates in some of the product lines.
We have been able so far to transfer these increases without reducing the savings compared with the domestic markets. This is not only due to that, it's confirmed. We have not disclosed this information because it's obviously a trading update, but the gross profit margin in Q1 has increased compared with 2019. The second one is we have not lost any significant contract during January, February, and March. I don't remember any. In fact, I don't remember even one, Joern. Xavier?
Thank you for your question. As we are doing the strategic plan as we speak, it's too early to give any specifics. What is clear at this stage to me, that this new journey will need to include a rethinking of anything that touches the passenger journey. That could be the stores, it could be how we relate with them, either on the physical space or on the digital one. How we can more and more introduce the concept of experience during the shopping. If we do the right things, the investment should be paying with a superior cash flow generation. The specifics can only be disclosed, as I said, after the process is finished in a few months.
Okay. Thank you very much.
The next question is from Jon Cox from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good afternoon, guys, and all the best, Julián, on your retirement, and welcome back, Xavier. Just a question on the guidance for this year. You're still maintaining this scenario of down 35%-40%, and then for a cash burn between CHF 120 and 240 million, depending on where you are on that 35%-40% decline in sales this year versus 2019. However, organic sales in April, and I find it hard to believe they're gonna get worse as we go through the year. We're only down 22%. You know, can you just give us some comment on the guidance, and you know, any changes you might have?
Just hypothetically, if your sales were down, say, 25% this year, I guess you would actually have equity free cash flow compared to a negative or a cash burn. I wonder if you can sort of comment on that at all. Then just to come back to my colleague's question there, Xavier, on the, you know, impact on savings or whatever it may be. At the moment, the company is guiding for roughly CHF 200 million savings, you know, even when we get back to pre-COVID levels, which, you know, on the back of, let's say, CHF 320 million in 2019 on a clean basis means that free cash flow would be around CHF 500 million, even when we get back to COVID-19.
You seem to be saying, actually, you need to spend some of that money to maybe, you know, do better in the future. You know, what sort of figures should we be thinking about, you know, at the moment regarding this CHF 200 million, if you are doing further investments? Is it more like, you know, CHF 150 million we should be thinking rather than CHF 200 or 100 million? Just to give us some sort of, you know, idea. As you're probably aware, it's very difficult for us to model, you know, what's going on within the company. Anything you can provide would be very, very useful. Thank you.
Thank you, Jon. Let me start with the question number one and two, and then hand over to Xavier for the last question. I think what is important to know to start with, and we were pretty explicit on that over the last two years, we are talking about scenarios. It's not a guidance the company is providing. The scenarios we kept unchanged due to a number of reasons. While we have seen some improvements in the trading over the last couple of weeks and months, we still remain cautious. The reason for that is, first and foremost, we have a seasonal business, as you know. What defines at the end, where the year ends up with ultimately is more related to Q2 and Q3 with the high season rather than Q1 or what we have seen between January and March.
Secondly, we discussed before inflation, where Julián rightly pointed out that we believe that we can pass that on to our customers, as we have done in the past, but it's still something we need to keep in mind. Last but not least, we also have the situation, the geopolitical situation at the moment in the world around Russia and the Ukraine conflict. We decided to keep the scenarios we have provided in March unchanged, so we are not updating them at this moment in time. To the second question around the equity free cash flow. Look, obviously, if the performance this year is better, than the -35% or the -40% scenario, obviously equity free cash flow should also be slightly better. We are not providing any numbers in that regard.
Thank you.
Jon, thank you for your question and happy to be able to reengage. Look, we need to keep in mind that I'm only assuming the position in June 1. I'm in a very early stage of understanding the company. I'm not able at this stage to give any specific numbers on what you ask. Just to be clear, until we announce any numbers, new numbers, whatever the company has said in the past, stays as it was disclosed. Then if anything will change in the future, we will explain it properly in due time.
Just in terms of new targets, what are your thoughts on that? How would the company, you know, what sort of communication policy are you thinking of having on target?
That's also too early to say. Look, what we need to do is to focus on doing an amazing job for our customers, for our consumers, for the passengers, our shops, p hysical shops and any other type of interaction with them needs to be something that amazes the passenger, that attracts their attention, and therefore that increases their spend. For that, we need to rethink a few things. We have amazing qualities and skills as an organization, but some of them need upgrading. That's my focus. Then if we do that on the right way, that should also yield a better performance over time for our shareholders. We can never forget, and I wanna emphasize that, because for me, ESG is not something external to the day-to-day of the company, but needs to become an essential part of what we do, even commercially. Those are the principles.
We will need to find, with Yves and the rest of the team, the right level of communications with the analysts and the market. The principle should be, as much as possible, a very transparent and straightforward communications.
Thanks for that. I'm just gonna push you one more time, Xavier. Obviously we've got the Capital Markets Day coming up. We know there's gonna be strategy announcements and new targets. What is the risk, do you think, of a you know, sort of like rebasing some of the figures you've already given or the existing figures? Just given your commentary on the need to reinvest for the long-term future.
Reinvest does not mean a massive increase in CapEx automatically. Reinvest, it means reinvest in skills, reinvest in people, not necessarily increasing the investment, but just maybe changing the priorities. Look, you insisted once more, and I'm gonna answer once more the same thing. I'm not prepared to give any new specific data, but I stay behind what the company has said so far, and if something needs to be changed, it will be communicated. But it will be an evolutive change. I mean, you should not be afraid or concerned. We will try to make an exciting journey for our passengers, which should reflect in an exciting journey to our airports and brands. At the end of the day, if we do a good job there, it should also yield for our shareholders.
Thank you, and good luck.
Thank you very much.
The next question is from Manjari Dhar from RBC. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon, guys. Julián, all the best for the future. I just had two questions, if I may. Firstly, on sort of passenger trends, what are you seeing in terms of capture rates and basket sizes, and how has that evolved year to date? Then secondly, how is the current stock availability looking, and have you taken in any stock early to mitigate supply disruptions? Thank you.
Sorry. I don't know if I understood properly the question. Can you repeat it?
Firstly on sort of capture rates, conversion rates, and basket sizes, how has that been trending year to date? Have you seen any changes to that? How do you view the current stock position? Have you taken in any stock early to mitigate-
Uh-huh.
Supply disruption? Are you seeing any areas of tightness?
Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. In terms of the basket, I think the evolution has been mirroring what the reopening of the shops has been. Along the quarter, I am talking about Q1 2022, the evolution started with very strong convenience store items. As a consequence, obviously the basket was lower. As far as the duty-free reopen in the most important locations, we have seen an acceleration in both spend per passenger and also spend per ticket or spend per basket. I think this is something that is today leading the top line in terms of growth. The second one, in terms of stock, we are absolutely right. The out of stock situation in the company today is even better than in December when we were very low in sales.
Even accelerating sales, the out of stock situation is totally under control. What is going to happen during the summer depends on the supplier, but we have already made all the orders, and we are ready in order to obviously receive the merchandise. My opinion is that the supply chain in Dufry is very well organized, and the control of this supply chain in the platforms, as you probably heard in the past, is fully accelerating. I am sure that the summer will be a good summer.
Great. Thank you so much.
The next question is from Rebecca McClellan from Santander. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much for your comments, Rebecca. It was a pleasure also to meet you and work close to you here. Regarding the spend per passenger, the comment has to be obviously nobody specific because we don't disclose this information, but high single-digit growth. As you know, last year we had also an increase. In terms of.....
Price inflation
Price inflation, we don't disclose this information because it's very obviously specific. As I said, the inflation that we have Received from suppliers. Of course, a structure of OpEx and OpEx has been transferred to the prices. The gross profit margin is very healthy and has been very useful in order to mitigate these increases. We don't disclose this quarter the financial information.
Okay, thank you.
Next question is from Jaafar Mestari from Exane BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. I had two, if that's okay. Firstly, if it was possible to dig into the free cash flow performance a bit more. CHF 87 million outflow versus 25 million that was CapEx that was delayed. Last time you spoke about CapEx in Q1, when you reported in detail, it was around CHF 50-60 million. That looks like a big portion of the budget did not happen. I'm just curious, what's the impact of here? Is it from the airport? Is it from your side to avoid disruption? And is it the right thing to do to push them to the high season? Effectively, are you gonna be doing refurbishments in the high season?
Anything else you wanna flag in that CapEx performance, please. Just maybe just a very open-ended question for Xavier Rossinyol. Obviously, some of us remember your tenure at Dufry as CFO. There's a lot less out there on what you achieved as CEO at Gategroup. Couple of very comprehensive annual reports, but you know, it's not the most recent. Just curious how you would describe your action there. From the outside, it looks like a very strong growth agenda, also fairly acquisitive. You know, are there other things that we don't necessarily get from the Swiss press or from the annual reports that you're particularly proud of at Gategroup?
Let me start with the first question around equity free cash flow. Look, Jaafar, the line was very bad. I'm not sure if I understood correctly. It was very clear it's around cash flow and around CapEx, but I'm not sure if this is the entire question which I understood. Look, the cash flow in Q1 is a very clean number. There were just smaller swings in net working capital, but nothing fundamental. From that perspective, it's extremely clean as a number. The only thing which is kind of outstanding is the CHF 25 million CapEx, which is related to a delay in some of our projects, and that we expect to catch up during the remainder of the year. Not sure if this answers the question. Otherwise, just please repeat it once more.
Thank you. I apologize for the line. I hope it's a little bit better. My question was related to that delay. When you last reported quarterly CapEx for Q1, it was CHF 50 million. This suggests that about half your budgeted CapEx did not happen and will now happen in Q2, Q3, which is closer to peak season. I was just curious to understand why it's the right decision to make refurbishments or investments closer to the peak season and how that delay came to happen.
Look, I'm not saying that the refurbishment is happening in Q2 or Q3. I'm saying that we are paying the invoices related to that in Q2 or Q3.
Fair. Okay. Very clear. Thank you.
Thank you for your question. It's always difficult to talk about oneself, but basically what we did at Gategroup was, number one, a full strategic review, as we are doing now, at the beginning of starting in the company. We got clear direction, and we kept the strategy for five years. That strategy, it contained on one side a very strong focus on the team. We put back passion and energy into the company. We transformed a little bit what the company was about. We moved from loading and offloading of aircraft, which is more accommodating, the commodity part of the business where the margins are more difficult to improve, and we focus more on a culinary revolution, so enhancing the offering for the airlines.
The combination of cost initiatives plus focusing on the high margin and part of the business where we could differentiate allows us not only to double sales, both growing organically and also with acquisitions, but more importantly to me, we double the margins. The EBITDA margin was doubled between 2015 and 2019, allowing the EBITDA in absolute numbers to almost multiply by four, thanks to the combination of sales growth and margin growth. It was a team transformation and a strategic transformation focusing on the structurally margin generators, and then, of course, being what I like to call crazy about execution and delivering what we committed.
That would be the summary of what we achieved as a team during the five years between 2015 and 2019. Of course, 2020 and 2021 was about, like in the case of Dufry, of cost initiatives. Constraining the expenditure and the CapEx and focusing only and solely on cash flow generation.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
The next question is from Matthew Garland from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Thank you for taking my questions, and, Julián, all the best for the future. The three questions I had were: One, in terms of sort of the trends that you're seeing from the newly acquired contracts, the new renewed contracts, are you seeing any, I guess, big changes in terms of pricing or service levels or any big changes, I guess, that we should take into account? Secondly, in terms of the F&B you have, obviously a U.S. partnership with Starbucks now. Can you talk a bit more around the opportunities that you see there, if you have any kind of targets that you're looking to achieve over the next couple of years? Then finally, in terms of the assortment, luxury was obviously around 13% of sales pre-COVID.
It's a category where you know you have a large number of the luxury names taking it in-house or a reduction in the amount of you know Chinese consumers traveling. Do you have any thoughts, I guess, on whether you will change the overall mix of your assortment as we kind of come out of the crisis, maybe if some areas like this will be de-emphasized going forward? Thank you.
Thank you. In terms of the contracts extended and new contracts, I think from a pricing point of view or from conditions point of view are very good contracts, even better than before the pandemic. Some of them are based in rent per passenger. That obviously is giving more flexibility. In general terms, I would say they have better conditions. Nothing to be worried in terms of the projections or similar things. Regarding Starbucks, this is obviously one of the examples that we have developed in the U.S., as is obvious because we commented on many times in different conference calls. The way to drive growth in the U.S. for us, as leaders of the duty-paid and duty-free businesses, was to invest in food and beverage.
In fact, the idea of listing at that time was to obviously facilitate the growth in food and beverage. Since this moment, and as a consequence, obviously, of the crisis, we have been slowing down the development, but we have expanded in different markets in the U.S. with Plum Market, with Euro Café, with other concepts. This is the first time that we have agreed with Starbucks to develop three of these units in a location in New York where we have already other operations. I think it's a very interesting opportunity. We still believe that the development of an acceleration of growth in the U.S. should be based in food and beverage. It's around 70% of the market. Meanwhile, the retail is 30% of the market. We are leaders in one side.
To accelerate growth, we need to invest in food and beverage in the U.S.. Regarding the luxury shops, I think the luxury business at this time, in this crisis, has been impacted like the other products, but there is something different, is that because it's a seasonal product in general, the reopening is a bit more complex because you cannot buy the merchandise for the next season when you don't have, obviously the shop open. I think we will need around, I would say from eight to 12 months to balance and to recover the level of business in luxury products. The effect of China on Chinese and the effect on other nationalities in luxury products so far has not been material.
We have seen with the shops that are open, that the performance is in line with the performance of the core categories and other categories in the business. I don't feel concerned about the presence and the opportunity with luxury products in travel retail. Regarding new product lines, I already mentioned it. I think we have investigated. We have done a big research in terms of understanding trends and changes in the passengers' behaviors. I think the three areas that I comment on during the presentation are very valid. One is obviously sustainable products, the other one is well-being products, and the other one is exclusive and trending products. Those are areas that we have started to develop a couple of years ago, even before the pandemic.
We have already implemented 175 of these initiatives in different locations, from personal cosmetics, to liquors, to other areas that, so far, and still obviously very early, are performing well. We need to, we need time for that. Thank you very much.
For any further questions, please press star and one on your telephone. The next question is from Alexia Apostolides from Barings. Please go ahead.
Yeah. I had just two questions for me. The first relating to revenue per passenger. I guess in the current context of disposable incomes coming under pressure and macro uncertainty, how confident are you that you can maintain revenue per passenger this year?
The question is very difficult to answer because obviously the evolution of the passenger profile from now to the year end, we are going now to the mass market time of season. As you know, the summer will be probably the best summer since the beginning of the pandemic. The reality is that when you have mass market, the theoretical non-like for like spend per passenger will drop. Comparing like for like, I think the trend in terms of specific airports and specific product lines is very, very resilient. I think the spend per passenger, like for like in specific locations, will continue growth. In blended times, in blended levels, it will be difficult because the mass market that is happening during summer will obviously drop the spend per passenger in global basis.
That's clear. Just the second one. Can you disclose what percentage of your revenue comes from Chinese travelers?
Yes. In 2019 was around 6%.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
There are no more questions at this time.
Okay. Thank you very much. Great pleasure have been, able, obviously, to participate in this last call. All the best for everyone, and I hope that we will meet soon. Thank you.
Thank you. Bye.