Yatra Online, Inc. Q1 FY2027 earnings call

• Company Milestone & Core Strengths

  • Yatra recently celebrated its 20th year of operation in India's travel industry
  • The company holds strong brand trust with consumers, and corporate customer retention exceeds 97% across more than 1,300 large and mid-sized enterprise clients
  • Technology is a long-standing core competency, with a fully integrated travel ecosystem covering booking, travel management, expense management, automation and analytics

• AI Strategy

  • Management views AI as a structural competitive advantage that will fundamentally improve the economics of managed travel
  • AI is being embedded across the platform to automate workflows, surface real-time savings, improve booking policy compliance, accelerate expense reconciliation, improve personalization, and reduce manual operating costs
  • AI investments are expected to drive long-term margin expansion, higher operating leverage, and improved scalable growth

• Market Context

  • Domestic travel in India remained resilient through the quarter, with Indian air passenger traffic growing ~2.3% year-over-year, supported by rising disposable income and growing preference for travel experiences
  • Non-air domestic categories such as hotels have sustained strong demand driven by short-haul leisure travel
  • Outbound international travel faced near-term headwinds from the West Asia conflict, which disrupted flight connectivity, increased airfares, and reduced demand, with industry inquiries falling 10-15% during peak periods; the medium-term outlook for Indian outbound travel remains robust, with projected low-teens annual growth in outbound spend over the next decade
  • The structural shift from offline to online travel in India remains in early stages, creating significant long-term growth runway for Yatra

• Overall Q1 Financial Performance

  • Consolidated gross bookings grew 16.3% year-over-year to INR 21,007 million (~USD 222 million), total transactions grew 11% year-over-year
  • Consolidated revenue from operations declined 10.4% year-over-year to INR 1,879 million (~USD 20 million), driven by lower MICE top line
  • Consolidated gross margin increased 6.1% year-over-year to INR 1,227 million (~USD 13 million)
  • Adjusted EBITDA increased 4.9% year-over-year to INR 216 million (~USD 2.3 million), with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 17.6% as a percentage of gross margin
  • Profit after tax came in at INR 41 million (~USD 0.4 million)

• Strategic Growth Initiatives

  • TravelPro (Yatra's SME-focused corporate travel offering): 30 of the 53 new corporate customers added in Q1 came via TravelPro, representing INR 800 million (~USD 8.5 million) in expected annual billable potential, validating the new go-to-market engine
  • ReCap (Yatra's new expense management solution): Has already added over 20 customers post-launch, and is expected to become a new meaningful growth engine expanding the company's addressable market
  • Middle East expansion via partnership with Kanu Travels: Leverages Yatra's travel technology built in India to enter the large adjacent Middle East market, paired with Kanu's regional market expertise and customer relationships All initiatives are investing in capacity ahead of expected revenue scaling, which increases near-term costs but expands long-term earnings potential

1. Air Ticketing Segment: Passenger volume increased 4.8% year-over-year to 164,000 units. Gross bookings grew 17.6% year-over-year to INR 16,579 million (~USD 175 million). Gross margin rose 8% year-over-year to INR 699 million, while margin rate declined from 4.6% to 4.2%. This segment contributed ~57% of total gross margins for the quarter.
2. Hotels and Packages Segment: Gross bookings grew approximately 13% year-over-year. Standalone hotel gross bookings grew 34% year-over-year, standalone hotel revenue grew 62% year-over-year, and hotel room nights grew 30% year-over-year. Hotels are a higher-margin segment that is growing its overall revenue contribution share.
3. MICE (Corporate Group Travel) Segment: Q1 top line was INR 300 million (~USD 3 million) lower year-over-year due to international travel disruptions. Total gross margin for the segment was INR 60 million lower year-over-year, with half of the impact from lower volume and half from temporary margin compression driven by a shift from higher-margin international travel to competitive domestic group travel.

• Management expects the near-term headwinds impacting the MICE segment (a 60 million INR gross margin decline in Q1) to be transitory, with performance expected to normalize as geopolitical conditions stabilize. Early Q2 data shows MICE bookings are already trending ~50% higher than Q1 with a healthier margin profile, confirming the recovery is underway.
• As corporate travel normalizes and new growth initiatives scale, management expects to rebuild adjusted EBITDA margins to over 20% (as a percentage of gross margin), with a long-term target of reaching 30%+ adjusted EBITDA margins.
• India's online travel market is projected to grow at double-digit rates over the next several years, outpacing most global markets, and Indian outbound travel spend is projected to grow at low-teens rates over the next decade.
• Management reaffirmed confidence in delivering sustainable profitable long-term growth leveraging India's structural travel market expansion.

• Geopolitical instability in West Asia has disrupted international air connectivity, increased airfares, delayed corporate travel decision-making, and suppressed outbound travel demand, disproportionately impacting Yatra due to its higher mix of international and MICE travel.
• Elevated air fares have created near-term headwinds for overall corporate travel demand.
• Timing of airline incentive programs created additional near-term negative pressure on Q1 air segment results.
• The shift from international to domestic MICE travel increased competitive pressures and compressed segment margins in the short term.
• Macroeconomic uncertainty and geopolitical volatility could continue to impact travel demand and the pace of recovery in international segments.

No investor questions were submitted during the Q&A portion of this earnings call.