11th Apr 2016 09:28
LONDON (Alliance News) - Hostel operator Safestay PLC on Monday said it made a loss in 2015 following the acquisition and opening of two new hostels, but revenue increased with the expanding portfolio.
Safestay said it made a pretax loss of GBP0.6 million in 2015, having made a pretax profit of GBP0.1 million in 2014, as it invested in infrastructure development. Revenue more than doubled to GBP4.0 million from GBP1.9 million.
During the year, Safestay opened a new hostel in London's Holland Park neighbourhood and one in Edinburgh, increasing the number of total beds to 1,526 from 560 at the start of the year.
The hostel in London's Elephant & Castle area, which is Safestay's only year-on-year comparable hostel, grew occupancy to 79% from 78%, with average bed rate up by 5.7% and revenue per available bed up by 6.3%.
Aside from the hostels in London and Edinburgh, Safestay also has a hostel in York, for which 2015 was its first full year of trading. During the year occupancy in York reached 50% while it had "strong average bed rate", Safestay said.
"2016 will see a full year's activity for Safestay Edinburgh and Safestay Holland Park that will lead to significant increase in revenue. We have a strong pipeline of on-the-books business. We expect increasing activity on the website as brand momentum grows with more direct bookings and greater customer touch-points and increased contracted group bookings," Chairman Larry Lipman said in a statement.
"We look forward with confidence to an exciting and profitable journey ahead," he added.
Shares in Safestay were trading down 1.4% at 54.50 pence on Monday morning.
By Karolina Kaminska; [email protected] @KarolinaAllNews
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