Good morning, dear listeners. Welcome to Novaturas Investor Relations Conference. I'm Emilia from Nasdaq Vilnius, and I'll be moderating today's event. We will start with the presentation from the management, which will be followed by the Q&A session. Please be informed that this webinar is being recorded and will be available on the Nasdaq Baltic YouTube channel. I encourage everyone to submit questions in the Q&A section at the bottom of your screen. You can submit them either anonymously or with your name. With that said, I'm pleased to introduce today's presenters, the CEO of the company, Kristijonas Kaikaris, and the interim CFO, Auksė Kriaučiūnaitė. Please, the floor is yours.
Thank you, and very good morning, dear investors and guests. It's a pleasure to welcome you to today's presentation, and I will provide you an overview of Novaturas performance for the first half of 2024 and also Q2 2024 and as we begin, I would like to highlight some of the key takeaways from this period. Okay, let me switch the slides. All right, so starting with executive summary. In H1 2024, travel sector faced rather significant challenges resulting in a 10% decrease in Novaturas income compared to the same period last year. This decline in income is consistent with a 10% drop we observed in the first quarter primarily driven by increased competition among tour operators in the Baltic region.
And this increased competition, marked by the entry of the two new full season players, led to an oversupply of passenger flight seats in the market, which subsequently offered lower prices, but putting pressure on our sales margins. Our EBITDA for H1 2024 reflects the difficult market conditions, coming in at EUR -1.6 million , which is a sharp decrease compared to H1 2023. This negative EBITDA underscores the impact of oversupply situation, particularly as it manifested in May and June, exaggerating the negative margins from the last minute sales. Despite these challenges, there were also positive developments.
We have seen a significant improvement in our operational efficiency, with a number of flights delayed by more than three hours, dropping from eight in H1 2023 to just three in H1 2024. This means that delays now represent less than 1% of total flights, highlighting our commitment to punctuality and customer satisfaction. Moreover, our efforts to enhance the customer experience have paid off, and as evidenced by the steady growth of the Net Promoter Score. Our NPS has increased from 37 in Q1 2023 to 56% in Q2 2024, reflecting the positive reception of our services and improvements we have made across the board.
As we look ahead, we are also preparing for an important change in our leadership team with announcement of a new CFO, who will bring a fresh perspective and expertise to guide us through the ongoing challenges and towards the future growth. In conclusion, I would like to say that while H1 2024 has presented us with significant challenges, it's really crucial to emphasize that Novaturas has successfully maintained its position as a leading tour operator in the Baltics region. We continue to hold the highest share of passengers, which serves a strong foundation for long-term success. It's also important to understand the context in which these results were achieved. The planning for the summer season of 2024 was finalized a year in advance during the summer of 2023.
At that time, we committed to substantial increase in capacity, anticipating a growth from 250K passengers to 380,000. So more than 30,000 passengers compared to the previous year's achievements. Rather significant growth, and these commitments were solidified through the contracts with airlines, locking the number of flight seats we would need to fill. Given these hard commitments, our flexibility to optimize or mainly to reduce the number of seats was extremely limited without incurring significant penalties. More importantly, reducing capacity would have risked losing the trust of our customers who had already made early bookings.
This lack of flexibility to cancel the committed flights, combined with unexpected oversupply of seats in Baltic region market due to increased competition, significantly impacted our financial performance in Q2 and led to a negative EBITDA. Despite these hurdles, we are confident that our leading position in the market and our commitment to operational excellence provide a robust platform from which to continue driving long-term growth. We remain focused on leveraging our strengths, adapting to market dynamics, and enhancing customer trust and satisfaction as we move forward to the second half of the year. Okay, let's turn our attention to key financials for the second quarter of 2024, which reflect the challenging environment we've been navigating.
Starting with our quarterly sales, we saw an 8% decrease in revenue compared to the same period last year, and this drop is closely tied to a corresponding 11% decrease in passenger numbers, equating to nine thousand fewer passengers than in Q2 2023. The highly competitive market conditions, particularly in key destinations like Turkey, have significantly impacted our sales levels. Our quarterly EBITDA performance underscores these challenges. In Q2 2024, EBITDA came at minus EUR 1.9 million , which represents a decrease compared to EUR 3.1 million recorded in the second quarter last year. This negative EBITDA result is a direct consequence of lower sales and the pressure on profitability per passenger. When we look at the gross profit and margins, there has been a notable decline.
Gross profit for Q2 in 2024 decreased to EUR 4 million to a bit more than EUR 4 million, down from EUR 9,182,000 in Q2 2023. Correspondingly, our gross profit margin has nearly halved, dropping to 7.1% to 14.9% in the same quarter last year. This reduction in margin reflects the intense competition and the need for aggressive pricing strategies. Despite these financial challenges, our load factors remain on target, standing at 95% for Q2 in 2024. This stability in load factors is a result of our continuous focus on flight optimization, ensuring that we maximize the capacity and minimize the impact of empty seats, which erodes profitability.
Regarding sales per passenger, while we have managed to maintain profitability per customer, it hasn't been sufficient to cover our operational expenses in Q2. This shortfall has contributed to the negative EBITDA and net profit figures we have seen this quarter. In conclusion, Q2, 2024, has been tough period for us, with the revenue and profitability under pressure from intense competition and challenging market environment. However, our ability to maintain high load factors and continue optimizing operations provides a solid foundation as we work to improve our financial performance in coming quarters. Let's review expenses for Q2, 2024, which provides insight into operational costs and how we have evolved in comparison to the same period last year.
Starting with sales, general and administrative expenses, we observed that the SG&A percentage has increased. This increase is primarily due to lower sales, rather than a significant change in our structure of these expenses. The structure of SG&A expenses has remained consistent with previous periods, even as we navigate through a challenging market environment. When we look at the specific categories in SG&A, there have been some notable shifts. General and administrative expenses have risen by 17% over the year from the last year, and this increase is largely driven by the amortization on intangible assets, particularly following the launch of our new website in Q2 2023.
The new website represents a significant investment in our digital infrastructure, and its amortization is reflected in the higher general and admin expenses. In terms of marketing dynamics, we have maintained a steady focus on our own channels for market diversification. This strategy has allowed us to keep advertising and marketing expenses stable despite the overall challenges, challenging marketing conditions. It's very important to note that while our overall marketing and advertising expenses have remained consistent, we have strategically shifted resources to better support our own channel, which are becoming increasingly important in our distribution strategy. Looking at specific expense categories, commission expenses have decreased by almost 10% compared to Q2 of last year, and this reduction aligns with our focus on enhancing our own channels, which incur lower commission costs compared to the third-party sales or partner sales.
Sales and marketing expenses also decreased by 10.3% year over year, reflecting our disciplined approach to managing marketing expenditures while still supporting our key initiatives. In summary, on this slide, I have seen while we have seen an overall increase in sales, general and administrative expenses as a percentage of income due to lower sales, we have managed to maintain control over the structure of these costs. Our investments in digital and operational efficiency are reflected in a higher general and administrative cost, but these are essential for positioning Novaturas for future growth. By keeping a steady focus on our own sales channel and managing marketing expenses effectively, we are setting the stage for more sustainable growth and moving forwards.
Let's now turn our focus on market performance of Novaturas across Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia in the first half of 2024. This will help us understand the distribution of income, gross profits, and operating profits across the key markets. Starting with income distribution, Lithuania continues to be our strongest market, contributing 53% of total income for H1 2024, and Latvia and Estonia contributed, respectively, 23% and 24%. This distribution aligns with our historical trends, where Lithuania consistently holds the dominant share of our revenue. However, it's worth noting that shares for Latvia and Estonia remain relatively balanced, indicating stable market dynamics across the Baltic region. When we look at gross profits, Lithuania again leads with 12% contribution, while Latvia and Estonia contributed 9%, 8%, respectively.
These figures highlight the relative profitability of each market, with Lithuania providing the strongest gross profit margin compared to its Baltic neighbors, Latvia and Estonia. Again, however, margins in Latvia and Estonia are slightly lower, which is something we are closely monitoring as we strive to optimize our operations and pricing strategies in these regions. Now, moving to operating profits, this is where we see some challenges. Here, all markets reported negative operating profit rates in H1, 2024, and Lithuania recorded an operating profit rate of minus 1%, while both Latvia and Estonia reported minus 4%. These negative figures reflect the intense competition and especially oversupply of flight seats, which have pressured our operating margins.
Digging deeper into numbers, in Lithuania, our sales were approximately EUR 52.1 million, with a gross profit of EUR 6.3 million. However, after accounting for sales and marketing, which totaled EUR 4.2 million, and general administrative expenses of EUR 1.5 million, our operating profit was just EUR 282,000. This slim margin underscores the challenges we face in maintaining profitability in our largest market. In Latvia, sales amounted to EUR 22.1 million, with a gross profit of EUR 2.1 million. However, higher sales and marketing expenses and administrative costs resulted in an operating loss of EUR 811,000.
In a similar picture, in Estonia, sales were EUR 23.1 million , with a gross profit of EUR 1.9 million . Operating costs, including EUR 2.5 million in sales and marketing expenses and EUR 612,000 in administrative expenses, led to an operating loss of EUR 1.1 million . These figures clearly show that while we are generating significant revenue across all three Baltics, the three markets, the high operating costs, particularly in sales and marketing, are weighing heavily on our profitability. The operating losses in Latvia and Estonia are particularly concerning, and point to a need for a more targeted approach in these markets to improve cost efficiency and optimize our margins.
As we review our performance in the first half of 2024, it's important to start with passenger trends we observed across the markets. In Q2, we experienced varied performance in Baltic region. Lithuania saw a decline in passenger numbers, with 45.1 thousand passengers continuing a downward trend over the past three years. Estonia also faced challenges with passenger numbers dropping to 16 thousand. However, Latvia provided a positive note, showing a slight increase to 15.9 thousand passengers, which suggests a stable market performance in this region. Looking at the broader picture for the first half of the year, the trends were consistent. Lithuania's passenger numbers continued to decline, reaching 62.3 thousand, while Estonian figures also dropped to 24.5 thousand.
Despite these challenges, Latvia's slight growth to 25.9 thousand passengers reflects our ability to maintain stability in certain markets, even as we're navigating industry challenges. Turning now to the growth in emerging markets. One of our key achievements has been consistent increase in average selling price trips from 2022 to 2024. And this trend indicates that we are effectively capturing more revenue per customer, reflecting the success of our pricing strategies and the value our customers perceive in our offerings. Our diversification and strategy has been central to this success. Over the past two years, we have managed to significantly reduce our reliance on highly competitive markets of Turkey and Egypt.
From 2022 to 2024, the combined share of these top destinations has decreased from 60% to 49%. And the shift is clear indicator of how we successfully redirected our customers to new markets, resulting in a business model that is less dependent on just a few destinations. In particular, our dependency on Egypt has decreased from 21% to 17%, and in a similar manner, our reliance on Turkey has dropped from 39% to 32%. This reduction is especially important given the intense competition in the Turkish market. Additionally, we have expanded our range of destination, increasing the number of long-haul options from 7 in 2022 to 12 in 2024, nearly doubled. This expansion not only enhances our portfolio, but also strengthens our competitive edge by offering a wider variety of travel experiences to our customers.
Moreover, our efforts to diversify have paid off, as seen in the increased passenger share for destinations outside of top three markets: Turkey, Greece, and Montenegro. This share grown from 23% in Q2 2022 to 29% in Q2 2024, highlighting the success of the strategy. We are particularly optimistic about the potential of these emerging destinations for the upcoming winter season. Additionally, Cyprus has remained stable, a stable valuable for our portfolio, further enhancing our overall destination offerings. Concluding on this slide, we have faced significant challenges in the first half of 2024. Our continued focus on diversifying destinations has played a crucial role in improving our operational efficiency.
We are committed to enhancing customer satisfaction and adapting to evolving market dynamics, which will be key to ensuring our sustainable growth moving forwards. Let's begin by looking at the trends we have observed in sales timing and customer booking behavior. Over the past three years, we have seen a notable shift of how customers plan their travels. In 2022, 85% of bookings were made less than three months in advance. However, by 2024, this figure had decreased to 77%, signaling a clear trend towards earlier bookings. This change is complemented by an increase of bookings made more than three months in advance, rising from 15% in 2022 to 23% in 2024.
This shift towards earlier bookings suggests that our customers are gaining greater confidence in planning their travels well ahead of time. We believe this is a direct result of our effective advanced booking incentive and proactive sales actions, which have encouraged customers to secure their trip earlier. Additionally, the average booking window in the first half of 2024 extended to 65 days, up from 63 days last year. This increase highlights a successful of our campaigns aimed at promoting early bookings, as well as trust of our customers' place in us to deliver a seamless travel experience. Turning now to customer perspective on our continuous efforts to enhance the overall travel experience are clearly reflected in our Net Promoter Score. This indicator of customer satisfaction and loyalty has seen substantial growth.
Starting at 37 in Q1 2023, our NPS has risen steadily, reaching an impressive 56% by Q2 2024, and this upward trajectory demonstrated the effectiveness of the improvements we have implemented across all touchpoints of our customer journey. Breaking down the NPS by market for Q2 2024, we see particularly strong results. Lithuania has achieved a commendable score of 60%, while Latvia leads an impressive 66%. Estonia, which started from much lower base with NPS of just 11% in Q1 2023, has shown remarkable improvement, climbing to 45% in Q2 2024. This significant growth in Estonia is particularly encouraging and highlights the positive impact of our efforts to improve flight punctuality and overall service quality in the market.
Our customers have shown strong preferences for several destinations in Q2 2024, with Antalya, Alanya, Sharm el-Sheikh, Crete, and, Tenerife emerging as a top-rated destinations. These results reflect the diversity of our customers' travel preferences and the success of our efforts to offer a broad range of attractive destinations. Now let's shift our focus to customer perspective, specifically looking at our on-time flight performance and the progress we have made in reducing flight delays during the second quarter of 2024. Starting with on-time performance in Q2 2024, we maintained a steady OTP of 82%, which is comparable and slightly better than the same period last year, and this consistency in OTP is a strong testament to our operational resilience and our commitment to provide punctual and reliable services to our customers.
Despite the challenges that come with fluctuating seasonal demands and operational complexities, we have been able to sustain an OTP that meets our customers' expectations. During Q2 2024, the number of flights delayed by over three hours was reduced from eight in the same quarter last year to just three this year. This reduction is a clear indicator of effectiveness of operational improvements and our ongoing dedication to enhance the overall customer experience. However, it's important to address the increase of shorter delays those under three hours. Compared to the same period last year, these shorter delays have slightly grown, and we are actively analyzing these shorter delays to identify patterns and implement the targeting measures to mitigate them.
Looking at our performance over past year, it's worth noting that our on-time performance peaked at 93% in Q3 2023. Although there was a slight decline in Q4 2023 and Q1 2024, due to the seasonal factors, maintaining an OTP around 78. 72 demonstrates our operational consistency and reliability. In summary, we have made commendable progress in reducing long delays and maintaining a solid OTP, and the rise in shorter delays in this area are keenly focused on improving. Our goal remains to deliver the highest standards of punctuality and reliability, ensuring that every aspect of customer journey meets and exceeds the expectations.
As we move to the discussion of our distribution channels, it's important to acknowledge that challenges we have faced, particularly in the area of web sales. Following the launch of our new website in August 2023, we anticipated a smooth recovery of web sales. However, the reality have been more complex. In Q1 2024, web sales were still down by 42% compared to the first quarter of the previous year. While we did see a slight stabilization with 0.3% revenue share increase from Q4 2023 to Q1 2024, the recovery has been slower than expected. In Q2 2024, we experienced a slight decline in web sales by 0.2% from the previous quarter, and that underscores the ongoing challenges in this area.
In response to these challenges, we have strategically shifted our focus towards enhancing our retail, our own retail channels. And this approach has proven to be fruitful, as we have seen a significant increase in our own retail revenue share, which has grown from 178% to 183%. This growth is particularly noteworthy, especially within such a short time, timeframe, and it highlights the success of our efforts to strengthen the direct channels. On the other hand, the share of revenue from our partners, such as travel agencies, has shown some decrease, and this shift reflects our strategy to reduce reliance on third-party channels, and instead focus on building and strengthening our own sales platforms.
By doing so, we are gaining greater control over customer experience and enhancing our profit margins. Looking ahead, the development and reinforcement of our own sales channels, both retail and web, will continue to be a priority for Novaturas. Our goal is to build a more robust and resilient business model, one that is adaptable to market changes and, evolving customer preferences. By focusing on these areas, we aim to ensure sustainable growth and improve customer satisfaction moving forward. In terms of, our distribution channels and effective commission rates, we have observed stability in our B2B channel, which remains consistent and 70%, both Q1 and Q2 2024.
Meanwhile, the web and GDS channels have held steady at 11% during the same period, and our own retail channel has shown positive trajectory, increasing from 17% in Q1 2024 to 18% in Q2 2024. Further, demonstrating the effectiveness of our strategic shift. Concluding, while we face ongoing challenges with web sales, our strategic focus on enhancing our own retail channels is yielding positive results. We remain committed to refining our distribution strategy to build a more resilient business model that meets the needs of both customers and our business objectives. As we delve deeper into our distribution channels across different countries, it's evident that our partnerships with travel agencies continue to play a pivotal role in driving our revenue.
In Lithuania, partners such as travel agencies are particularly crucial, contributing a substantial 78.4% of our total revenue. This makes Lithuania our strongest market in this segment, underscoring the significant reliance we have on these partnerships to fuel our business in region. In Latvia, revenue from partners accounts for 61% of our total, while in Estonia, this figure stands at 62.7%. These numbers highlight the consistent importance of travel agencies and other partners across the Baltic states, with Lithuania as we see leading the way. In terms of our distribution channels, of our other distribution channels, Estonia leads in web sales with 70.8% share, followed by Latvia at 13.3%, and Lithuania at 7.4%.
This indicates that while web sales are important part of our strategy, there is still significant potential for growth, particularly in Lithuania. When it comes to own retail sales, Latvia is ahead, with 25% of revenue coming from this channel. Estonia follows with 19.5%, and Lithuania holds the smallest share of 14.2%. These figures reflect the varied dynamics across our three markets and the different levels of success we have had in promoting our own retail channels. The data underscores the critical role of travel agencies and other partners play in our overall business success, particularly in Lithuania, where they dominate our revenue streams.
However, it also points to growing importance of our web sales and our retail, which are essential components of our strategy as we continue to seek more direct engagement with our customers. Our retail channel, it has also shown promising growth. In Lithuania, our retail share increased slightly from 13.9% in the previous quarter to 14.2%. And, the most significant growth was observed in Latvia, where the retail share surged from 19.1 to an impressive 25.8%. Estonia also saw a positive increase, with the retail share growing from 17.3% to 19.5%. And these figures demonstrate the effectiveness of the strategies to strengthen the direct sales channels, particularly in the markets where we see high potential growth.
Concluding on this slide, while partnerships with travel agencies remain the backbone of our revenue generation, especially in Lithuania, the importance of expanding our own retail and web channels cannot be overstated. As we move forward, balancing these channels will be key to ensuring sustainable growth and maintaining our competitive edge across all markets. As we turn our focus to web traffic and digital developments, it's important to address the shift we have experienced in the second quarter of 2024. Novaturas has traditionally held a strong leadership position in the web, but during Q2, we saw a slight decline, with our share dropping to 36% of total traffic. This represents...
This indicates increasing competition in digital space, and the need for us to redouble our efforts in this critical area. In response, we have concentrated on several key developments to enhance our web performance and overall user experience. Following the initial rollout of our website, our primarily focus in Q1 was stabilization, ensuring that our website runs smoothly without any disruptions. In Q2, we continued these efforts and successfully completed the stabilization process. This has led to a solid foundation for further enhancements. One of our major improvements we are now focused on is the upgrade of our search functionality. This enhancement is designed to help users find relevant information and options more effectively, which is crucial in maintaining user engagement and satisfaction.
Looking ahead, our focus for the upcoming months will be further refining our website's capabilities. That includes improving hotel descriptions using artificial intelligence tools, which will not only provide the comprehensive overview of each hotel, but also summarize real customer reviews in a clear pros and cons format. Moreover, these descriptions will be translated into the languages of our Baltic markets, ensuring also using artificial intelligence tools, ensuring that our content is accessible and relevant to all our customers. Concluding here, while we face challenges in maintaining our web traffic leadership, the ongoing developments in our digital platforms and growth in our retail channels indicate that we are on the right path.
Our continued focus on improving the user experience and expanding our retail presence will be key to regaining our competitive edge and driving sustainable growth moving forward... Moving to the next slide. As we look ahead to the remainder of 2024, it's crucial to outline our expectations and objectives that will guide us through the challenges and opportunities on the horizon. For 2024, Novaturas anticipates serving between 220,000 and 240,000 customers, passengers, and a projection that remains consistent from our earlier forecast after Q1. In terms of revenue, we expect to achieve between EUR 180 million and EUR 200 million. These targets, while ambitious, reflect our confidence in the market's recovery and strength of our product's offerings.
Although the market environment remains challenging, we are seeing encouraging signs. Our current early bookings for the rest of 2024 show positive results, with some destinations and passenger loads already 20% better compared to the same period in 2023. This uptick in early bookings is a strong indicator that our strategies are resonating with customers, and that there is a demand rebound in the Baltics. However, despite these positive early booking trends, given the overall market dynamics and our H1 results, we do not anticipate our EBITDA to turn positive for the year 2024. We currently forecast our EBITDA for 2024 to be between EUR -2 million and 0, while our net profit is projected to be in the range of EUR -3.5 million to -1.5 million.
These figures underscore the difficult environment we are operating, but also highlight the potential for stabilization as we move forward. To navigate these challenges and achieve our goals, we have outlined several key tactical objectives. First one is enhancing our sales channels, and we are committed to improving the efficiency and service of our sales channels, ensuring that they better meet customer needs and expectations. This includes both our direct channels and partner networks. Second, complete website update. Our revamped website will undergo further enhancements to ensure it offers a seamless digital experience for our customers and partners. This upgrade, I spoke before, is essential for driving online sales and improving customer engagement. Third objective, our broad destination choices. We will continue to offer a wide selection of destinations.
This diverse portfolio not only gives us competitive edge, but also helps to balance profitability across various market segments. The fourth objective, streamlining operations. We are focused on customer-centric, data-driven efficiency, and this approach will guide us in strengthening our organizational structure, ensuring that we can support these tactical objectives effectively. The fifth one, value-added services. Introducing additional services will provide more value for our customers, enhancing their overall experience and loyalty. The sixth objective, the digital enhancements, where we will continue to enhance the customer experience through new digital solutions. These innovations will make interactions more convenient and engaging, further strengthening our customer relationship.
In conclusion of today's presentation, while 2024 presents significant challenges, especially in H1, as we see, we are strategically positioned to navigate them with a clear set of objectives aimed at sizing operations and setting the stage for future growth. The positive trends of early bookings, particularly with passenger loads 20% better in some destinations compared to last year, what we see for upcoming months, provide a solid foundation for optimism. Our focus on enhancing sales channels, completing digital updates, upgrades, and offering a broad range of destinations will be key to our success. We are confident that these initiatives will help us build a more resilient and customer-focused business as we move forward.
That concludes my presentation today, and I hope this overview has provided you with a clear and detailed understanding of our current performance, the challenges we are navigating, and the initiatives we are implementing to ensure long-term growth and stability. I want to thank you for your time and attention, and now I'm happy to open the floor for any questions you may have.
Thank you for the presentation. We will now proceed with the questions. Before that, I would like to remind everyone to submit your questions in the Q&A box at the bottom of your screen, and the first question we received is: Is the asterisk related to the June results, related to previously announced May results, or the change of CFO?
Can you repeat the question? The first part.
Yes. The asterisk in the June results, is it related to previously announced May results?
And the second part was
Or the change of CFO? Yes.
No, it was a technical issue. It's not related to the change of the CFO.
Yes, I can elaborate more with Kristijonas. It is not related at all, at all. The CFO decided to continue his career outside the company, and I want to emphasize that the error, which caused wrongly reported numbers, is such a human error in calculation of preliminary revenues for the month. The calculation error happened only in the message for Nasdaq for preliminary revenues, and it was not included in any declarations and reports submitted after the message.
Thank you. And, the management of Novaturas has been considering alternatives for raising additional capital. What is your current plan for securing additional capital? Is bond issue one of these ideas?
Yes, correct. We are considering the ways of raising additional capital because we have a lot of initiatives that require, you know, investments to keep our leadership in the market, and have a sustainable growth and profits in the improving market. So, one of the means and tools we are looking at the moment and basically we are very soon going to execute it, is bonds.
Thank you. And could you elaborate on the approximate size of the issue?
We are planning up to eight million.
Thank you. And could you please elaborate more on the gradual digitalization of sales channels? When do you expect to see a more significant shift to own distribution versus travel agencies?
Well, we are very much reliant on, as we saw, especially in Lithuania, on our partner sales, so we are expecting not to decrease the overall numbers in the partner sales, but grow the additional part, which is our direct sales, especially in the e-commerce, in the web, so that remains our strategy, but again, as discussed, the website, which we launched last year, didn't go as planned, and there were a lot of challenges and technical issues, so we stabilized it at the moment that you know, our customers can find their dream vacation. They can go through the different steps and make the booking successfully.
But we still see a lot of areas, especially on the search and content, what we want to improve in the upcoming, in the current, actually, quarter, in Q3. And this is already in the full speed in ongoing process. The second part of our direct channel is our own sales, and those saw, as I presented, a significant growth, and we are planning to continue the growth in the upcoming quarters.
Thank you, and could you please provide more details about what are the problems facing the new website?
So the problems were that, first of all, the whole project, which started nearly one and a half or nearly two years ago, it was the underestimated complexity, I would say, in the travel market. And we saw that the final result was being delayed, then it was a rush to launch the new website. That resulted into a lot of bugs and errors, and that is very difficult and time-consuming task or tasks, you know, to eliminate those bugs. So again, as our plan was, in Q1, our focus was to stabilize the website, which we have done already. Once it's stabilized, we are focusing on enhancement of specific functions and features, again, as I mentioned, on the search.
So it's better and more fluent and easier for the customer to find their dream vacation. And then, of course, after the search, you know, presenting the results, the selection for the customer, including, especially, I want to highlight on mobile devices, because that was also the area where we did not succeed from the very beginning when the website was launched.
Thank you, and could you please share EBITDA aspirations for this year?
I can probably repeat what I have already shared. Our expected EBITDA for 2024 is from EUR 2 million to 0.
Thank you. And we've answered most of the questions, so if you would like to submit a question, please do so now. But another question we have received is: What was the cash at the end of the quarter? And if the current quarter has some loss, do you see a risk of running out of cash or a default?
We are managing our cash flow so far successfully. One of the objectives for our bond issue initiatives is not only to invest into new technologies, but also to refinance our current debt loan from one of the banks we have currently, and that we definitely see together with improving results in the autumn and winter, with the load factors and the bookings. I also mentioned that we see them in some destinations 20% higher loads than last year. We believe that we strongly believe that we will manage the cash flow situation, and we will better and improve it with improved results in the upcoming months.
Thank you. And what are the main covenants with the banks? Main loan covenants.
Auksė, could you take over?
Yes. The main covenants are about positive EBITDA, then equity divided by EBITDA, and the third one I do not have in front of my eyes, but these two are the main ones.
Thank you. And, when will the full report be published?
The full report of H1 has been already issued and being published at the moment.
The final question we have is, will you be planning on paying dividends?
I think the answer is obvious from our expected EBITDA that for 2024 we are not planning to pay dividends. We are planning those definitely, and all our efforts are focused on the long-term success of Novaturas. And again, looking at the market dynamics and specific oversupply what we have had during the summer because of two new competitors joining full-time into the yearly season. We see it as looking back from the history of Novaturas, and the market has seen similar situations. It stabilizes the next year, so we expect that next year our promise, our target for the dividends can be executed. But this year, no, with expected EBITDA there will be no space for the dividends.
Thank you. And as all questions have been answered, on behalf of Novaturas and Nasdaq Vilnius, thank you, everyone. It was a pleasure being with you today. The recording of the presentation will be available on the Nasdaq Baltic YouTube channel. Thank you for a very informative conference.
Thank you.