Good morning, dear listeners. Welcome to Novaturas' meeting with investors. I'm Amelia from Nasdaq, and I'll be moderating today's event. We will start with a 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 for a rewatch. As always, I encourage every one of you to share your questions in the Q&A section at the bottom of your screen, and you can submit them either anonymously or with your name. With that said, I'm pleased to introduce today's presenters, Chief Executive Officer of the company, Vitalij Rakovski, and Chief Financial Officer, Vygantas Reifonas. Dear guests, please, the floor is yours, and good luck.
Thank you very much. Hello, dear investors, and all the participants. It's a big pleasure to have you here. Today we're gonna present you our financial results for the first 3 months and also update you with full- year outlook. To begin with, our sales during the first half of the first quarter of this year are up by 35%. We recorded the increasing revenues every consecutive month, which was driven by two reasons. First of all, our volumes increased by approximately 4%, and then the sales growth and average sales price increase.
That average selling price increase was mainly driven by increasing basically all components of our tour package, primarily fuel price, jet fuel price, followed by hotel prices. That said, our gross profitability also increased and quite substantially, more than 2x . We reached a gross profitability of almost 16%, which is way better than we did last year when it was up to 10%. Ultimately, it resulted quite high EBITDA result, which is EUR 2.6 million. This result is, I would say so, extremely good, especially for the first quarter, when we have a, let's say, low season or winter season, when our sales are typically much lower.
However, the profitability this quarter is extremely good. Even looking backwards some five, six years in a row, probably it would be one of the best or the best first quarter of the year of Novaturas. Also, our EBITDA of EUR 2.6 million attributed to a net profit of almost EUR 2.3 million. This result was mainly driven, I would say so, by four reasons. First of all, is the fact that we well diversified our destinations, and it was always our priority, and especially when we materialized this direction in the first quarter, where our long-haul share extremely increased on almost 2x .
Up to 20% of our total sales were generated from long-haul destinations, and typically, long-haul destinations are generating much higher sales profit per pax. This is the first thing. Second thing is that we continuously improving our own sales performance, so our own sales share also increased. Considering the fact that it is more, let's say, efficient sales channel for us, so it has a lower cost base, it also allowed to improve the profitability. Thirdly, we also did timely and quite strategically good decisions to consolidate in certain of our markets, in Latvia and Estonia, and the Egypt destination, where we saw the increasing competition, and we also saw that there is a huge risk of price war.
Basically, additional pressure on the margins, and that's why, knowing that it could impact our profitability, we consolidated with one of the other tour operators, which allowed us to say, decrease the last minute, typically loss-making sales. Last but not least, is of course, the fact that the jet fuel prices and USD, EUR exchange rate were also contributing positively on our cost of sales. This is mainly the reasons behind such good performance. It results sales profit per pax more than EUR 100, so yeah, EUR 120 per pax, which is a very good result, I would say so, for the first quarter performance.
Going forward, almost 60% of our annual program, when I say annual program, I mean, summer destinations and winter destinations, starting from November, are also well sold out, so almost 60% are sold out by the end of May. Which basically allows us to look positively on year to go performance. Also, this year, in April, we executed the largest, I would dare to say so, vacation project in Lithuanian history, where we together with for another tour operator, AirGuru, carried almost 2,500 passengers to one of our destinations, and it was a huge vocation, which was a great success for all the participants, including us.
Knowing our volume, 2,500 passengers, it's quite huge and considerable contribution to overall performance of Novaturas. Also in May, we introduced our full winter sales program. We added additional three destinations, and by that, we're continuing our strategy implementation, where we want to diversify our destinations, and we want to offer our clients something different than the mainstream destinations, which are, let's say, in winter seasons, typically Egypt, and in summer season, it's typically Turkey. Additional three destinations introduced, and also looking on, of course, still very early bookings for winter 2023, 2024. Our sales are up by 3x versus the last year, which is also a promising start for us.
Overall, overlooking the competition, despite the fact that competition going forward, in the first quarter and going forward is increasing, we still firmly remain the market leader within the Baltic States. With quite considerable, let's say, difference, versus the second largest market player. Shortly overlooking the competitive environment, I would say that during the winter season, when was operating in the market, that's one of the reasons why we were also looking, consolidating the flights where it was necessary. Going forward, also from June this year, another Turkish tour operator starts operations in the Baltic countries, which is called Anex Tour.
Despite the fact that we, as Novaturas were expecting maybe more aggressive start of this tour operator, however, based on the currently publicly available information, we see that the start of this tour operator would be a bit of a maybe slower than we expected, which slightly eases pressure on summer sales. Also, during the first quarter of this year, we introduced our three-year growth strategy, where we said that our main focus would be into four directions. First of all, it's business growth through technologies. Second of all, we would put attention to the sustainable travel direction, but also we would put attention towards our clients and employees.
The three-year strategy is available also publicly, and those who haven't, can look at it and get more information. Also, I would say that looking forward, our summer sales, let's say, were well secured with jet fuel hedge instruments, which was not the case last year, and was one of the reasons why our second quarter performance was extremely poor, I would say. We recorded a net loss on EBITDA and net profit level. Meanwhile, going forward, we are well secured, so more than at this moment, 70% of our sold passengers are hedged with jet fuel futures and products futures. That's why we feel much more comfortable looking in the summer.
Few words about the performance by markets and by destinations. First of all, our volumes are almost 13%. In Latvia, it's 9%. Meanwhile, in Estonian market, it is a decrease of 12%. In Lithuanian market, we were Egypt destination was not intensively consolidated. That's why the volumes in Egypt destination increased, and we did quite well with this destination in Lithuania. Seeing higher competition and also maybe not as high as we expected demand, we consolidated our Egypt as market, volumes there were a bit lower.
However, as I said before, we introduced a lot of long-haul destinations, and spur markets, it's different, but overall, it contributed significantly towards our, let's say, performance and our long-haul share substantially increased. Average selling price is more than 1,000, and that's probably one of the highest average selling prices through the last few years. The general inflation is quite high as overall in the market, the same happens with the traveling sector. Average selling price is 1,100 EUR.
Mainly, it is driven by the fuel price increases, the hotel price increases, and also in our case, it's also influenced by the fact that the destination mix between it, is changed, so we are selling more long-haul destinations where the average selling price is considerably high. Taking a look on our distribution channels and the effective commission, so as was said in the beginning, our distribution sales mix is changing. Our main sales channel remains the same, so it's travel agencies, but the share of travel agencies is decreasing three quarters in a row. As you see, year 2021, it was 70%, meanwhile, this quarter, we recorded only 66%. Looking deeper into that, our own sales channel is increasing substantially.
From 11% of share, now it's almost 18% of share. Our web sales are more or less stable, was it 19%? This quarter is slightly lower, it's almost 17%. However, going forward, our attention to the web sales remains, let's say, very high. That's why one of the main priorities in our strategy is the introduction of a new web page, which would be based on the new technology. It will be a totally different user experience, and we're planning to launch this already the first half of this year, sometime in June. That's from where we expect our web sales also to increase.
Even despite that, our unique visitors flow into our webpage is increasing, so it's up by more than 25%, comparing year-over-year. Also taking a look on the shares between other tour operators in their webpages. We are dominant there, more than 50% of total internet flow, let's say so, goes through Novaturas. If to take a look on our operating expenses and sales and marketing expenses, here the situation is, I would also say, well managed. Our costs are under control. Our total sales and marketing in general and administrative expenses increased by 23%. If to divide it into the marketing, so it's a 27% increase, and general administrative expenses 17% increase.
It's a much lower increase than our sales. That's why our share to sales is even decreasing. It's 5%, meanwhile, last quarter, it was in year 2022, it was 5.6%. I would say so that despite quite high inflationary environment, we are doing well with certain efficiency measures and trying to find the ways how to, let's say, slow down our OpEx increase, and so far, we are doing good in terms of this. Last but not least, a forward-looking statement for the year 2023. We would like to update a certain our key performance indicators.
First of all, volume-wise, we're in February, we gave a guideline of 270,000, from 270,000 to 290,000. This guideline remains unchanged. Annual revenue guideline also stays flat, from EUR 210 million-EUR 225 million. Meanwhile, our guideline for EBITDA performance is increased, from EUR 3 million-EUR 5 million to EUR 4 million-EUR 6 million. If the midpoint before was EUR 4 million, now it's EUR 5 million for EBITDA. With the same amount, we update our net profit. Net profit, from EUR 1 million-EUR 3 million. That was our initial guideline, and now the updated one is from EUR 2 million-EUR 4 million with a midpoint of EUR 3 million.
The reason behind this guideline update is, first of all, of course, the strong first quarter, where we see that our net profit is already within the annual guideline range. Of course, the strong sales for summer are also giving additional push for guideline update. This, I would say, the two main reasons. Of course, there are certain risks, which we accounted, however, time will show how they will materialize. This first is that the impact of the competition can be different. So far we see extremely huge competition in Turkey destination, where there are five tour operators with their own programs, offering clients a lot of flights.
That could have a certain negative impact for our performance. Of course, second is macroeconomic sentiment. So far, let's say, we see that the demand for traveling is high, and we do not feel any substantial, let's say, impact from the macroeconomics. Meanwhile, it's difficult to predict how it's gonna be in the second half of the year, especially, I would say so, during autumn. Looking on a strategic, let's say, objectives, we would keep implementing our strategy agenda, with the main focuses to the digitalization, to improvement of customer experience. We also would be investing into the algorithmic pricing, and also would be developing additional extra services for our clients on top of traditional tour packages.
At this point, I would end up, and I would sum up this presentation in the following way: the start of the year is extremely good, extremely strong. We did deliver one of the best results, first quarter results during the history of the company. Going forward, the perspectives are also good or moderate. The business model itself stands well. We're diversifying our destinations, we're diversifying our sales channels, we're investing into the technologies, so all these things should going forward, contribute to value increase for shareholders. I leave the time for questions.
Thank you very much for the presentation. Indeed, let's proceed with the Q&A session. As we don't have any questions now, I would like to encourage all the participants to please send in your questions in the Q&A box of your screen, and I will read them out loud. You can send in your questions anonymously, too. Let's take a minute to wait for the questions. All right, we have the first question, which is as following: What is the proportion of long-haul destinations in early booking sales? Thank you.
Probably talking about winter 2023, 2024, wouldn't be able to name the number, but I would say the following, that going forward, even to the next season, we increased our long-haul, let's say, selection and volumes even additionally by 50% versus this year. This year should be even higher.
Thank you very much. Let's take a minute to wait for more questions to come in. All right, another attendee congratulates you on great results and asks you: Could you please elaborate a bit more on the competition? How is Join UP! doing and the Anex challenger? Thank you.
Yes. To put everything in a structured way, last year, the newcomer called Join UP!, Ukrainian tour operator, launched operations. This year, a new one, Anex, should launch operations for Turkey, starting from June. As I said in the presentation, the launch of Anex operations are so far, in our opinion, are, let's say, so, slow and not as aggressive as maybe we expected. There were different information in the market, how they can start and how strong it would be. So far it's, I would call it moderate launch of operations. Meanwhile, Join UP! finds its customers through, I would say so, quite low average selling prices.
Basically, a bit of a targeting, maybe a bit different client profile than we have. So far, they are proceeding with their operations, I would say so. They were, let's say, maybe more aggressive during the winter season, as Join UP! is well known for strong operations in Egypt. Meanwhile, they don't have maybe such strong operations or such strong destinations during the summer. However, they're also having some, let's say, some also moderate operations, and if I recall correctly, market share of some 10+%, 10% something .
All right. Thank you very much. Coming back to the long-haul destinations, will the long-haul destination proportions remain similar in summer and autumn of this year compared to this quarter?
No, during the summer, basically, the share of long-hauls is much lower due to the seasonality of the business. Typically, long-hauls are offered to our clients during the winter. During the summer, we have almost no long-hauls, and then they are restarting from November.
All right. Thank you very much. I would like to ask the attendees to please send in your questions now, as it seems that only one question is coming at the time. The next question would be as following: where do you see the proportion of own sales in the total mix?
So far it's difficult to predict the share, and we do not have any kind of particular number for ourselves. Just we have a, let's say, strategic direction to improve our web sales, so we want them to grow on a higher pace than total sales, so that should contribute to share increase. How quickly and how well we can do it, time will show up. We believe that the strong, let's say, background and backbone for this direction is the introduction of new web page, which would be a fundamental change, and going forward, we're gonna invest into web page substantially.
This is, let's say, first thing. Also, we're, how to say, investing into the efficiency measures of our own sales. We are developing the customer relationship management system. We are developing the customer service standard, which we believe and already see that substantially contributes to increasing sales efficiency of our own sales channels. Even in certain markets, our own sales share is, I would say, so quite high, up to even 40%. Probably it's this quarter, it's 34%, yes, but the number of markets in certain particular markets, it's up to 40%. This year should go.
However, we don't want to, how to say, intentionally, how to say, forget about the channeling agencies channel, as there the competition is also high, and certain our competitors are operating only through this channel. That's why we're gonna be, and we would be strong in this channel as well. Only, as I say, time will show up, which channel would perform best.
Thank you very much. Do you expect strong pricing pressure from the Turkish competitor?
So far, by the way, good question. Also, we were expecting the pricing competition with new competitor entering the market would be high. So far, I would say, so it's not, they're not as aggressive with the prices as we expected. So far, again, time may change, there is quite huge competition from the existing competitors as there is generally quite huge supply of seats to the market to the Turkey destination, so it's enough of the, let's say, so fight between the existing competitors.
Thank you very much. As all the questions are answered, on behalf of Novaturas and Nasdaq, thank you everyone for joining. It was pleasure hosting you today. As always, the recording will be available for rewatch. Dear management, thank you very much for the presentation. Have a good day, everyone, and goodbye.
Thank you, everyone. Goodbye.