Thrillseekers help boost recovery for Experience Co

Skydiving, the Great Barrier Reef and adventure travel are proving popular for Experience Co, which continues to recover from the impact of the Covid pandemic.

Skydiving has been the fastest-growing component of Experience Co’s business.

Skydiving operations in Queenstown are recovering much faster than Experience Co’s similar businesses in Australia, with the group now well ahead of its pre-Covid levels.

“The rate of recovery has been ahead of what it’s been in Australia,” said Experience Co chief executive John O’Sullivan, announcing the full year results for the adventure tour operator and owner.

The Great Barrier Reef, where the company offers island day trips, had also been a stellar performer for the company, which carried 250,000 customers on the reef this financial year, up on the 230,000 clients carried the prior financial year.

All up however, the adventure travel and accommodation owner and operator reported a net loss of $100,000 for the year ending June 30, an improvement on the half million dollar loss recorded the previous year, and the $13.6m loss incurred in 2022.

Strong improvements in skydiving revenues helped Experience Co record revenues of $127m for the 12 months to June 30, up on last year’s revenues of $108.6m, reflecting the strongest trading result of the business since the onset of the pandemic. It also recorded underlying EBITDA profit of $14.4m, up on last year’s EBITDA of $11.3m.

Bamurru Plains Jabiru retreat accommodation. Picture: Helen Orr

But periods of bad weather, particularly the impacts of Tropical Cyclone Jasper and associated flooding in North Queensland, as well as record wet weather in NSW coupled with the thin return of big-spending mainland Chinese tourists, have hampered Experience Co’s performance.

“Certainly the recovery for China has not been as quick as we would have liked. We would like it to be quicker,” Mr O’Sullivan said. “We are roughly around 40 per cent of what we were in 2019 for our business of Chinese customers.”

Mr O’Sullivan said the company had a positive outlook for 2025, with global markets continuing to recover and July performing ahead of expectations.

He said it’s Bamurru Plains resort on the edge of Kakadu in the Northern Territory, where its Jabiru Suite cost $6000 a night, had performed particularly strongly in July.

“It was well up on the prior year, we had a 20 per cent increase in occupancy in the premium Jabiru suite,” he said.

Experience Co chief executive John O’Sullivan.

But he said there had been a softer March to June period, due to more Australians choosing to travel overseas.

“It was a bit slower than what we would like, but what we had in July it was a really good month.

“Our adventure experiences, such as the Great Barrier Reef and Tree Trops that’s been the best performing side of the business, we had an underlying EBITDA of $14.1m but the fastest growing component was the skydiving business unit.

“Our business is still in recovery (but) in the later stages of that overall we are pretty happy with the result.”

On the question of travel trends, Mr O’Sullivan said we are seeing far shorter booking periods for his Wild Bush Luxury products, as well as skydiving and reef trips.

“People are a bit more risk averse and are more likely to book through travel agents,” said Mr O’Sullivan, who was previously the boss of the federal government’s Tourism Australia.

“I think that the recovery of outbound travel has been more aggressive than I thought.”