Some highlights are:
· Australian accommodation market segment share maintained
· 3.6 million room nights sold across the Group (vs. 3.4m H2 FY10 and 3.7m H1 FY10)
· $521 million in accommodation transacted (vs. $483m H2 FY10 and $517m H1 FY10)
· 518,000 room nights sold in Asia (vs. 480,000 H2 FY10 and 587,000 H1 FY10)
· 58,400 flight bookings (vs. 49,900 H2 FY10 and 51,700 H1 FY10)
· Total transaction value for flights $41.9 million (vs. $43.0m H2 FY10 and $40.7m H1 FY10)
· Trans-Tasman flights introduced on Wotflight.com
· Wotif.com booking window extended from 3 months to 6 months
· First stage of multi-lingual functionality launched for Asian operations (Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Indonesian Bahasa)

Cooke said the performance “contrasts markedly with the dynamics in play throughout calendar 2009 when consumers were holidaying locally to reduce overall travel budgets. This trend fell away in calendar 2010, with a disproportionate swing to offshore travel by our core Australian customer base, We believe this dynamic benefited traditional travel agents”.

He noted early signs that holidaying locally may be returning to favour this year, with consumers tightening their purse strings and becoming more focused on value for money.

“Such behaviour is consistent with recent consumer sentiment research showing households are cautious around the economic outlook, prospects for their finances and their debt levels.

“For a family, shelling out $5,000 in international airfares before even getting to their break is a big ticket item – it would more than pay for an entire holiday ‘at home’ in Australia. Softness in some of our key Australian leisure destinations is seeing great value on offer, and reinforces the economics of holidaying domestically. This behaviour is further supported by the reawakening to the quality and variety of Australian leisure destinations – which it peculiarly took an American, Oprah, to highlight to us.

“If these early signs settle in as the trend for the current year Wotif.com, based on past experience, is very well positioned to benefit.”

In the reporting period, the Wotif Group sold 3.6 million room nights across its portfolio of brands.

Cooke noted, “Whilst the number of room nights sold was slightly down on the record volumes achieved in the first half of last year (3.7 million room nights), we improved on the 3.4 million room nights sold in the second half. This has also coincided with a 5% increase in average room rates across the Group.

“It is also very pleasing to report that we have seen no reduction in our Australian market segment share based upon Australian Bureau of Statistics numbers, notwithstanding the continuing high level of competitor activity.”

The Group sold $521 million of accommodation (excluding GST) in the 6-month reporting period (up 8% on H2 FY10 and up 1% on H1 FY10). The Group increased flight bookings volumes by 13% (58,400 vs. 51,700 in H1FY10), however lower ticket prices resulted in total transaction value (excluding GST) only increasing by 3%.

Group revenues ($71.02 million) were up 2% on prior half ($69.69 million) and up 7% on the 6 months to 30 June 2010 ($66.32 million). Operating costs increased by $4.15 million over the prior corresponding half – of which the majority ($3.14 million) related to increased online and offline marketing costs. The after tax profit of $25.39 million for the half was down 8% on prior corresponding half ($27.57 million) and flat when compared to the second half of the 2010 financial year ($25.38 million).

On current trading conditions, Cooke noted: “The start to the second half was far from ideal – with cyclones and floods savaging much of Queensland and floods impacting northern New South Wales and Victoria in January – we have notwithstanding managed to maintain our bottom line performance at the levels achieved in January last year.

“Whilst it is still too early to extrapolate, we have seen forward booking levels (not check-ins) on Wotif.com over the last 10 days return to low double-digit growth. We have seen similar trends on our lastminute.com.au site.

“In our Asian operations we continue to add to our accommodation inventory, improve functionality on our sites and portals (including the addition of multi- lingual content) and to reinvest in online brand building activities. Our flights business will launch international capability on wotflight.com in the current half – which will provide that business with a complete flight offering.

“On wotif.com, we extended our booking window on 27 January 2011 from 3 to 6 months and have seen a positive response from customers and suppliers alike.”

He said Wotif remains focused on driving more sales to hotel and accommodation partners and “absolutely committed to remaining the lowest cost third party online distribution channel available worldwide”.

The success of Wotif, he added, has “ensured that our supplier partners are not forced to pay commissions at levels dictated by international behemoths”.