The owner of school trips firm PGL said its adventure holidays arm faced a £1.5m hit to profits this year due to cancellations and lower bookings caused by the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa.
Cheshire-based Holidaybreak said the business, which includes the brand Explore, had enjoyed a period of “very strong tradin”” prior to the disruption.
It said the uprisings led to high levels of cancellations and lower levels of forward bookings, as well as increased costs in dealing with the disruption.
The events are estimated to have cost the division around £1m in lost profit in the first half of the financial year, with a further £500,000 in the second half.
It has refined its product offering to focus on more profitable tours but said sales for the adventure arm were still 3% below last year.
Losses in adventure rose to £2m from £600,000 a year earlier in the six months to March 31, contributing to wider losses for the group over the seasonally quieter half-year of £19.2m, up from £17.7m last year.
Holidaybreak was also impacted by tougher trading conditions in its Superbreak hotels division, where half-year profits fell £300,000 to £4.2m.
Hotel sales are currently 9% below last year, although this is partly due to the loss of lower-margin airport hotel contracts with large travel agents.
Holidaybreak said its education arm – its biggest operation and much less exposed to discretionary spending – continued to trade well, with 96% of revenues already secured for this financial year and 39% for 2012.
The company’s PGL UK centres will be accommodating around 6,000 schools at sites including Liddington in Wiltshire and Windmill Hill on the Sussex Downs during this year.
It also reported an “excellent trading performance” from Meininger following the acquisition of a 50% stake in the Berlin-based business, which has city centre sites near cultural locations, including in Cologne, Frankfurt, Vienna, London and Munich.
Chief executive Martin Davies said: “We have delivered a resilient performance in the first half despite the difficult trading environment.”
