Hays Travel records pre-tax profit of £81m

Hays Travel recorded a pre-tax profit of £81 million and group revenue of almost £507 million for the 12 months to April, both 11% up on the previous year.

Company revenue was more than double that in 2018-19. Hays’ travel agency revenue has doubled in that time to £280 million and its tour operator revenue more than doubled from £91 million in 2019 to £200 million this April.

The company’s foreign exchange earnings more than quadrupled from £5.7 million to £26.6 million over the same period as Hayes increased its number of outlets from 139 in 2018 to about 500 this year.

Staff costs rose to more than £115 million, up from £84 million in 2023-24, and three and a half times what they were in 2019 as employee numbers averaged 4,556 – up from 3,535 the previous year and 1,465 in 2019.

Hays noted the rise in employee costs “will impact profitability in the coming financial year”.

Reporting the acquisition of Miles Away, parent of Miles Morgan Travel in 2024, Hays noted it had “achieved significant synergies”, adding: "There are also some key learnings from the business given its strength in the long-haul market.”

Travel Weekly understands Hays looked at the potential purchase of Baldwins Travel before the agency business filed for administration in July.

Hays has since acquired Inspearational Travels (Spear Travels) in June, Victoria Travel (Cruise.co.uk) in July, Polka Dot Travel in October, and Millington Travel and The Holiday and Flight Centre this month, as well as 51% of John Stewart Travel in August and 35% of Ocean Holidays in June.

The accounts state Hays Travel’s aim "to become the UK’s most profitable privately owned travel company through valuing our people, our customers and the communities where we operate".

They also state the company met the UK threshold for making climate-related financial disclosures for the first time in the financial year.

The accounts note: “While customer behaviour hasn’t yet [been] significantly altered by societal trends towards more sustainable practices, it’s the group’s working expectation that this will have an increasing impact on where and how our customers choose to travel.”

Owner Dame Irene Hays previously told Travel Weekly’s Future of Travel Conference in September the agency would report double-digit growth in its results, and added: "We have grown in pretty much every area of the group. Some of that growth is through acquisitions, but not very much, and if we strip that out we would still be in double digit-growth.”