On the Beach is an online seller of package holidays that owns no planes or hotels, and it has spent three years building a bigger, more automated business. It reached record bookings and £1.2bn of holiday sales (TTV) in FY24 and FY25, then lost much of its 2026 spring and summer-booking momentum when the Middle East conflict began on 1 March. It now guides to profit well below its stated long-term ambition, with a recovery projected for FY27.
A holiday seller with nothing to fill
On the Beach sells package holidays online, mainly to UK customers. A package is a flight and a hotel bought together. The company is best known for beach holidays and has added city breaks and cruises. It also sells to customers in the Republic of Ireland.
It is asset light. It holds no inventory and is independent of airlines and hotels, so it can pull seats from many suppliers through its own technology platform. Management says this lets it shift quickly when demand changes. Customers' prepayments sit in a ring-fenced trust account, which held £210m at March 2026.
It now sells only to consumers. It has shut its business-to-business arm, and bookings are increasingly made in its app, which took 38% of bookings in the first half of FY26. 12 May 2026 3 Dec 2024
Post-pandemic recovery and the Ryanair deal
FY23 brought record sales of £1.07bn as travel normalised. The company said it would restart dividends from FY24. In October 2023 the High Court awarded it £2m against Ryanair over pandemic flight refunds.
In February 2024 the two sides signed a long-term distribution agreement, which gave On the Beach what it called free and fair access to Ryanair's seats and ended the litigation. In FY24 sales rose 15% to £1.2bn and adjusted profit before tax rose 25% to £31.0m. Management had borne about £3m of one-off costs to keep Ryanair flights on sale before the deal was final.
The shares rose from 95p at the end of October 2023 to 254p by December 2024. 5 Dec 2023 31 Oct 2023 27 Feb 2024 3 Dec 2024
Cities, Ireland and a £85m profit ambition
Better technology let the company widen its offer. City breaks and the Irish website began in the last quarter of FY24. By May 2025, 130 cities were live.
On 3 December 2024 the board set a medium-term ambition: TTV of £2.5bn, EBITDA of £100m (40% of revenue) and adjusted profit before tax of £85m. It gave no date. In March 2026 it added a 38.7p earnings-per-share goal. That is also the vesting hurdle for share options granted to senior executives under a Growth Plan, priced at 252p.
The company also returned cash through a £25m buyback launched in December 2024. A second £25m buyback followed in September 2025.
FY25 delivered record sales of £1.23bn. But the September 2025 update guided adjusted profit before tax from continuing operations to £34.5m-£35.5m, below the £38.2m consensus quoted in May. It also announced the wind-down of the B2B arm. The shares fell from 290.5p in August to 221.5p in September. 12 Dec 2024 3 Dec 2024 13 May 2025 24 Sep 2025 6 Oct 2025 12 Mar 2026
The Middle East conflict hits summer bookings
Early FY26 looked strong, with bookings up 10% to the end of February. Demand then slowed sharply after the conflict began on 1 March. On 12 March the company suspended its full-year guidance, and the shares fell from 202p in February to 157p in March.
Customers put off the higher-value summer trips, especially to eastern destinations, and booked closer to departure. Management says this deferral cut margin per booking. First-half bookings still rose 7% to a record 324k. But adjusted profit before tax fell to £2.3m from £8.4m.
Management cut 108 jobs, saving about £4m a year, after automation of most bookings. On 12 May it reinstated guidance for adjusted profit before tax of £18m-25m. It launched a £10m buyback in June. Chief Marketing Officer Zoe Harris left on 8 May 2026. 12 Mar 2026 12 May 2026 20 Mar 2026 8 Jun 2026
“As a result, we have today reinstated guidance and the Board is confident in delivering FY26 Adjusted PBT in the range of £18m to £25m.” 12 May 2026
What went right and wrong
The asset-light model took the first hit without large losses, and the company stayed profitable through the shock. The technology investment brought real gains: 98% of bookings are automated, up from 60% in FY22, and city bookings grew 116% in the first half of FY26.
But growth in volume has not turned into matching profit. Bookings are shifting to cheaper, shorter, later trips, and the company has cut prices to compete. First-half adjusted EBITDA nearly halved to £6.4m even as bookings reached a record.
The record on guidance is mixed. FY24 landed in line with expectations. FY25 came in below consensus. FY26 finished in the top half of the reinstated range after the suspension. 12 May 2026 24 Sep 2025 3 Dec 2024 24 Sep 2026
Who runs it and how they are paid
Shaun Morton is chief executive and Jon Wormald is finance chief. Richard Pennycook is chair; he also became non-executive chair of Boku in August 2025. Simon Cooper, the founder, remains a non-executive director.
Executives' deferred bonuses are paid in shares. Their Growth Plan options pay out only if adjusted earnings per share reaches 38.7p in any year to September 2029. Cooper's family trust has sold shares: 3m at 228p in December 2024, and 500,000 at 174.4p in October 2026. It still holds about 4.9%.
Artemis holds about 12% and Fidelity (FMR) about 10%. 6 Oct 2025 13 Dec 2024 9 Oct 2026 8 Oct 2026 15 Jun 2026 23 Sep 2026 24 Jul 2025
FY26 ends in the top half of guidance
On 24 September 2026 the company said FY26 adjusted profit before tax would be £22m-£23m, inside the £18m-25m range. Bookings grew 9% and TTV was about £1.3bn. Cash at the year end was about £60m. Bookings in the last eight weeks were up 17%.
The shares closed at 170.8p on 9 October 2026, against 254p in December 2024 and 157p in March 2026. 24 Sep 2026
FY27 guidance, with the long-term goal still undated
The board guides to FY27 adjusted profit before tax of £28m-£35m. It says it wants to scale the business on its technology platform, with more AI-driven sales channels. It planned integrations with more AI chat platforms in the second half of FY26. Full-year results are due on 1 December 2026.
The 2024 ambition of £85m profit and £2.5bn TTV stays in place with no date. The March 2026 statement said the board stays confident of it, yet FY27 guidance is well below it. Geopolitics and later bookings remain the main risks. 24 Sep 2026 12 Mar 2026 12 May 2026 16 Sep 2026
Written by AI from On The Beach Group's own announcements since Oct 2023 · every paragraph links to its sources