Good afternoon. Dear listeners, welcome to Novaturas Meeting with Investors. I'm Amelia from Nasdaq Vilnius, 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 upon request. 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 presenter, CEO of the company, Vitalij Rakovski. Mr. Rakovski, please, the floor is yours, and good luck.
Thanks a lot. Good afternoon, dear investors, and thanks a lot for joining. Let's start. Very shortly, I will present to you our third quarter financial results. To begin with, we did perform really good and strong during the third quarter. Our revenue reached almost EUR 64 million, and this is almost 50% more than we had last year and even by 13% more versus 2019 levels. On top of that, we served more than 88,000 travelers, which is approximately 10,000 more than we had last year. Also, we have met and even exceeded our guideline, which we provided in the second quarter of this year.
Our guideline for the travelers served was 75,000 per quarter, and as you see, we managed to be closer to 90,000. In terms of profitability, it was an exceptionally good quarter where we reached an EBITDA of EUR 2.1 million and net profit of EUR 1.9 million. This was mainly reached by few main factors. First of all is our proactive actions of program optimization which were made somewhere in the middle of this year. We adjusted our program based on customer demand. This is first. Second of all, we improved, especially in Estonia, our functionality of our flights, which also allowed us to regain the trust in Estonian market. Thirdly, the increase of average selling price also contributed to the improvement of profitability.
Last but not least, we did very well in timely reaction of jet fuel price fluctuations, which basically allowed us to avoid any fuel price, let's say, losses which we generated in the second quarter of this year. All in all, it's even 10 times more than we did in terms of EBITDA than last year, and we even exceeded the 2019 actual results by more than 50%. Such a strong third quarter allowed us to have a positive EBITDA for the full nine months of this year of EUR 1.4 million EBITDA positive. Also it allowed us to return to profitability path in terms of net profit as well. For the nine months of this year, we have a net profit of EUR 0.3 million.
Last but not least, I would say so that in the first quarter we also launched our Summer 2023 program. It was launched with, I would say, the widest destination selection compared to the competitors in the market. Also it was launched at once. It wasn't done as we did it previously, gradually, but basically we launched full selection at the same time. Second of all, we did quite a unique step, and we reintroduced lowest price guarantee in the market, and currently we are the only tour operator with such a service which can be bought by our clients.
Which we see also to create a huge trust from our clients and from our partners, considering our promise that this is the best time to do your booking for the next summer and that this is the best price you can get. Our promise to our clients is that if such price will go down, we will compensate the difference. Thirdly, we also introduced the exceptional extra services offering, which is mainly concentrated to allowing our clients to have very flexible conditions for rebooking their holidays.
The combination of all these three, let's say, steps, as we see already allows us to have considerably higher early bookings than we had in year 2021. At the moment, we are two times more early bookings than we had the year before, which also, we believe, creates a strong background for a successful start of the next year, which is approaching. If to jump to the nine-month performance of our revenue, our revenue exceeded and was approximately EUR 155 million. This amount exceeds 2019 levels by more than 10%. In terms of travelers served, we're still slightly below 2019 levels, up to 10%, comparing the same period in 2019.
The main reasons behind such a revenue increase are, I would say two reasons behind that. First of all, is that the tourism sector in general is recovering and demand is back. Second of all, average selling price rises quite substantially. It consists of two factors. First of all, is that aviation fuel prices are still high and increased substantially. Second of all, hotel rates are also up due to generally inflationary environment currently in the market. Our sales distribution between the product categories remains quite stable. 90% of all sales are generated by package tours, and the remaining is distributed between flights only and sightseeing products. If you take a look on our performance by market. Here I would say the results quite equally redistributed between the markets.
As you see, the performance versus last year and the performance versus 2019 is very similar between the markets. Some 10%-15% gap versus 2019 in all the markets. Also, I'd like to emphasize the situation and competitive situation in the market. At the moment, there are three competitors or four players in the market, which is Novaturas, Tez Tour, Coral Travel, and Join UP!. Join UP! is the recent tour operator who entered the market in the second quarter of this year, and gradually is increasing its capacity. However, we still believe that they are still in an active market entrance mode with quite aggressive pricing. However, on the other side, we see more and more flights to be canceled. We're currently actively monitoring the market and also reacting to our competitor actions.
Jumping to the performance by destinations. Here I would say so that there are no significant changes. Turkey remained the main destination for our clients, amounting of approximately more than 40% of total sales. The other destinations were redistributed quite similarly. Greece is around 16% of total sales, Egypt 13%, then it goes Montenegro, Spain, and Bulgaria. Also it worth to be said that, as per current market situation, Novaturas is the tour operator which has the widest destination selection. More than 30 destinations are available in our portfolio. We are quite far away from the nearest competitor who has around 20 destinations, and the other two market players are having even below 10 destinations in their selection. Jumping to our sales distribution among the channels. Here, I would like to emphasize a few things.
First of all, our main distribution channel remains travel agencies, which account of 69% of total sales. At the same time, we keep growing our own direct sales, especially these results are very good in Latvian market, and it is driven by a few things. First of all, the fact that the biggest travel agents this year already stopped, discontinued their operations. The clients basically redistributed in the market, which allowed us also to improve our own sales. The second of all is that our service level of our direct sales is quite high. One of the indicators which we're measuring is Net Promoter Score. As you see, it's almost 90%, which is a really good result, which also gives direct contribution to our increasing own sales share.
Last but not least, we are continuing to develop various functionalities of I.T. systems, including the improvements and additional features for our travel agencies. If to jump to the e-commerce area, where our sales, as you saw before, account for roughly 18%. In this environment, I would say, so we look even stronger than in offline environment. Looking current top three biggest tour operators, their traffic, we have the highest share of more than 50% and it remains quite stable during this year. In Latvian market, it's even higher, which accounts of almost 60%. Converting these numbers into the absolute figures, during all nine months of this year, our websites were visited by 3 million unique visitors, and this is 60% more than we had from last year.
Our web sales are indeed looking good. We compared to the market also clearly leading the way. In terms of efficiency and productivity, our sales, I would emphasize probably sales profit as one of the main indicators which shows us how much we earn per pax of the traveler. In the third quarter this year, we generated EUR 44. Meanwhile, last year, the same period, it was only EUR 11 per pax, and in 2019 it was around EUR 13. Basically, this is the main reason why already the result is much better than in the previous periods. Load factor for the nine months is 94%, which is close to our estimated expected annual load factor of 95%.
In the third quarter, it was slightly lower due to the fact that there were some availability, let's say, issues in certain destinations where we did have challenges to filling the planes. However, for the full year, this ratio should be closer to 95%. Average package price is also high and remains high during full this year. It's around EUR 800. Meanwhile, last year it was closer to EUR 700. Jumping to the operating performance. Operating expenses and operating performance. I would say so that, in the third quarter, we continued to be very well under control of our OpEx. Our general administrative expenses were slightly above EUR 1 million. If you compare it to the 2019 levels, it's up by some 10%-15%.
However, they, together with sales and marketing costs, are even lower than we had in 2019 levels. Basically, we're for now still able to serve a higher number of clients with a lower, let's say, operating resources needed. It's also quite good result so far. Last but not least, our future and forward-looking statements. Here I would say few things needs to be mentioned. First of all, is our continuous actions were made during the middle of the year, where we reviewed our capacities for the second half of the year, considering the new competition in the market and also our intentions to improve the profitability. This is first thing.
Second of all, we've also conditionally consolidated flights in Latvia and Estonia with another tour operator for winter program. By that, we're also partially managing the risk, considering current macro uncertainty in the market. Thirdly, our summer 2023 program is already, let's say, available and our capacities are already public. We believe that the current announced program is well-balanced, I would say so, and it's very well strategically planned. The volumes there are very closely to 2022 of this year summer program levels.
The reason behind that is that we are not planning any, let's say, increase, considering the fact that still macroeconomic situation is quite uncertain, and we want to be in this area pragmatic and also deliver everything what we announce and to keep the promises to our partners and our clients. All of that being said, our plan for quarter four is to have monthly traveler volumes of average of 15,000. This is first thing. Second of all, we are planning to have significantly higher profitability in the second half of the year versus first half of the year. The first quarter of this year already proves that we are keeping this track record. The same we plan for the fourth quarter.
Also our EBITDA profitability in the second half of the year and last quarter should be significantly positive. Which should lead us to the overall result of EBITDA net profit being very close to 2020 year to 2021. At this moment I would stop and give a stage for questions.
Thank you very much, Vitalij, for the presentation. Indeed, now we will proceed with the Q&A session, but before that, I would like to remind that you are all welcome to send in your questions in the Q&A box of your screen, and you can send them anonymously too. Let's begin. The first question would be as following. Andre is congratulating you on good results and asking, "Could you please share your expectations for sales profit per pax in 2023?" Thank you.
Mm-hmm. Thanks a lot for questions. For question, I wouldn't be able to say the absolute figure, as we are currently in a very active planning stage for the next year. However, I would say probably a few things which could be as a guideline. First of all is that considering our good performance in the second half of this year, we are planning to be on a similar or slightly better levels next year, second half of the year. Meanwhile, considering our quite poor performance and let's say challenging first half of the year this year, so we plan to have considerably better results in the first half of next year.
In absolute figures, I would say sales profit per pax should increase next year due to much better performance over the first half of the year, next year.
Thank you very much. The next question would be as following. In your presentation, you write, "Net profit expected to be positive and higher than Q4 of 2022." Do you mean that Q4 2022 net profit is expected to be higher than Q4 2021 net profits?
Correct.
Okay. Thank you. Let's proceed to the next question, and it is as following. Both companies are heading into a recession. Mild as it seems so far, the consumption seem to slow down at best. Novaturas sees rapid sales growth during the fall months, which is a bit contradictory. Any insights about why sales of holiday packages seem to buck the general trend? Much appreciated.
That's a very good question, that we are also strongly monitoring the macro situation and the, let's say, cost of living situation, and also are positively surprised that the demand for traveling is not decreasing yet. There could be a certain delayed effect from one angle, which we of course don't know, but one of the reasons could be as such. Another reason could be that despite the cost of living current standards, people are still willing to travel and still willing to, how to say, have their vacations, have their holidays due to the fact that for a while they didn't have it. So far, indeed, the demand is still there, let's put it like this.
As I said before, we're strongly monitoring the situation and looking on it, and if in case of any signs, we would be, how to say, dynamically adapting our supply towards that.
Thank you for your answer. As we have two more questions remaining, I would like to invite all attendees to send in your questions in the Q&A box of your screen, and I will read them out loud. The next question is: Could you please give us the feel for the expected interest expenses in 2023, assuming that Euribor is expected to be around 2.9%? Also, maybe you can comment on the planned loan repayment schedule.
I would pass the answer to Arūnas.
Hello. Thank you for your question. As Vitalij mentioned, we are still in the deeper planning for the next year of the financials. In terms of our loan repayment schedules, the majority part of loan is set for 2034 and 2037, and next year will be less intense for the loan repayments. We could have a positive effect on cash flow in term in comparison to this year.
Thank you very much. Let's proceed to the next question. The next question is asking, could you please indicate the fuel hedge ratio in Q3 and how it compares to Q2 and Q1?
Yes. I will also take this question. Thank you for it. We have a higher position of hedged aviation fuel than Q1 and very similar as we had by the end of Q2. It is because we have lower number of clients during the winter season because it's around 10 to 50 thousand clients per month as we have around 30,000 clients in winter months. Yes, during Q3, we increased our limit for hedging instrument. We have signed new facilities for instruments, the brokerages, and we will increase it still for the upcoming summer 23 season.
Thank you very much. Could you please share your insights on why one of the biggest Latvian travel agencies went bust? Thank you.
Yes. Good question. I would say one of the reasons and main reasons behind this is because of delayed reaction or actions of the pandemic. This is first thing. Second of all, let's say crystallization of the business minds of the owners of the travel agency. Travel agency business wasn't their only business for the owners, and they basically decided to concentrate to the other business lines. Let's say stop activities here.
Mm-hmm. Thank you very much for your answer. As we have the last question remaining for today, I would like to invite all the attendees to use their chance and ask the company any question that they have in the Q&A box of your screen. The last question, as it seems for today, is, in a long term, what % of web sales Novaturas is targeting to have in sales distribution by channels?
Yes. Currently there is no such, let's say, figure of what web sales share we want to have. However, we want to basically our web sales to increase, let's say, on a higher pace than the total market increase. I mean, how to say, instrument behind that is that we want to improve our conversion rate of our web, which should allow us to have higher growth rate than the total market. Ultimately the share can grow, but not necessarily if our other channels would be doing, how to say, in a same good way as web. Definitely growth of web should be much higher than total growth.
Thank you very much for your answer. If you could maybe comment on, if you know, what was the market share of the Latvian travel agent that went bust?
Market share, probably difficult would be for me to answer. Let's say so as an indicator, it could be that their share in B2B sales was some 10%, I would say so. More than 10%. Maybe that could help to understand. At that moment, it was the biggest travel agency in the market. It was also maybe worth to be said their, how to say, volumes were not just like one day were, how to say, canceled. They were decreasing their operations, how to say, gradually, step by step. Basically that's how it went.
Thank you very much. It seems that all the questions are answered. On behalf of Novaturas and Nasdaq Vilnius, thank you everyone for joining us today. The recording will be available upon request from the company. Dear Management, thank you very much for the presentation and an interesting Q&A session. Have a good day, everyone, and goodbye.
Thank you very much. Goodbye.