Pursuit Attractions & Hospitality, Inc. Q2 FY2025 Earnings Call

Good afternoon. My name is Cameron, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Pursuit's 2025 Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Thank you. Carrie Long, you may begin the conference.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us for Pursuit's 2025 Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Our earnings presentation, which we will reference during the call, is available on the Investors section of our website. We encourage investors to monitor the Investors section of our website in addition to our press releases, filings submitted with the SEC, and any public conference calls or webcasts. On the call, you will hear from David Barry, our President and CEO; and Bo Heitz, our Chief Financial Officer. Today's call will contain forward-looking statements, which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Please refer to the disclaimer on Page 2 of our presentation for identification of forward-looking statements and for a discussion of risks and other important factors that could cause results to differ from those expressed in such statements. During the call, we will also discuss non-GAAP financial measures. Definitions of those measures are provided on Page 3 and reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are provided in the appendix of the presentation and in our earnings release. And now I'd like to turn it over to David, who will start on Page 4 of our presentation.

Thanks, Carrie, and thank you all for joining us as we review our strong 2025 second quarter results. We delivered double-digit year-over-year growth across revenue, income from continuing operations, and adjusted EBITDA. This growth included significant increases in both visitors and revenue per visitor, reflecting continued healthy demand for our differentiated and authentic guest experiences, and helped drive strong flow-through to adjusted EBITDA. Our Refresh, Build, Buy strategy continues to be a powerful growth engine that generates meaningful returns. With our recent strategic Costa Rica acquisition, which I'll cover in more detail shortly, we continue to strengthen our global footprint and unlock meaningful long-term growth opportunities. We're excited to be in our peak summer season, delivering exceptional guest experiences, and I'm encouraged by our solid first half of '25 results and continued positive demand indicators across our business. We're pleased to announce that we are raising our full-year guidance with stronger double-digit growth expected in both revenue and adjusted EBITDA. All right. So let's begin on Page 6 with a reminder of what drives our success. Pursuit delivers authentic unforgettable experiences in iconic destinations that global travelers are prioritizing. We appeal to a broad range of visitors, no special skills required, just a love for a beautiful view. Our portfolio includes 17 world-class sightseeing attractions and 29 distinctive lodges, all located in some of the most iconic places in the world. We've built a leadership position in markets with high barriers to entry and perennial demand. We're supported by a team of approximately 4,350 passionate and dedicated individuals who deliver exceptional guest experiences every day. And we have a powerful strategy to deliver significant growth through reinvesting and improving our existing businesses while deploying capital to drive acquisition-focused growth in new opportunities that meet our criteria. As highlighted on Page 7, this disciplined strategy and our strong execution has enabled us to more than triple our revenue over the last decade while delivering strong returns on our investments. The Pursuit team has a growth mindset. We're driving consistent growth across our existing experiences fueled by strong demand and a relentless focus on guest and team member experience. Through strategic inventory management, targeted guest programming, focused pricing strategies, and the value of integrated collections, we're filling white space and maximizing yield. Importantly, we're scaling effectively and efficiently by maintaining cost discipline and unlocking operating leverage, ensuring that our growth is both sustainable and margin accretive. In addition, we continue to pursue compelling growth investment opportunities that complement and accelerate our strategy, both within our existing markets and in new iconic and compelling geographies. As we show on Slide 8, over the past decade, we have established a strong track record of value creation through our Refresh, Build, Buy strategy. From 2014 to 2023, we completed 13 major growth investments, ranging from refreshing the Banff Gondola, transforming it into a top-rated must-do experience to creating Iceland's world-class Sky Lagoon geothermal attraction to buying numerous irreplaceable, one-of-a-kind attractions and hospitality experiences. These investments represented approximately $460 million in capital deployed, generating a strong return and elevating guest experiences. We've continued to build on this momentum with 4 additional acquisitions further expanding our portfolio and reinforcing our commitment to disciplined high-impact growth. So whether refreshing existing experiences, building new experiences, or buying one-of-a-kind experiences, our strategy continues to deliver meaningful results and position Pursuit for long-term success. Now let's discuss our most recent growth investment in more detail, starting on Page 9. On July 1, we completed the acquisition of Tabacon Thermal Resort & Spa, which marks a significant milestone in our growth journey. This iconic year-round destination in Costa Rica's Arenal region combines 2 geothermal hot spring attractions, a luxury hotel, a renowned spa, and signature culinary experiences, all set within 570 acres of pristine terrain. It's a rare best of both worlds opportunity, blending high-margin attraction-based experiences with premium hospitality. With its unique location and natural thermal features, Tabacon benefits from strong competitive barriers and strengthens our geographic and seasonal diversification. Costa Rica is an established global tourism destination with many of the largest hospitality brands in the world drawn to the country's stability, perennial demand, and highly educated bilingual workforce. Tabacon serves as an ideal anchor for building a broader Costa Rica collection with meaningful scale, and we see significant long-term upside as we apply Pursuit's proven growth playbook. Continuing to Page 10, Tabacon represents truly world-class attraction and hospitality experiences in one of Costa Rica's most popular travel destinations. Nestled at the base of the Arenal Volcano and adjacent to over 900 acres of pristine rainforest reserve, Tabacon offers exclusive access to the country's largest network of naturally flowing hot springs through both the Tabacon and Choyin Thermal River attractions. The renowned 5-star luxury full-service resort has 105 rooms and year-end occupancy exceeding 80% with over 30,000 room nights annually. Supported by a proven Costa Rican leadership team with a strong track record of growth and hospitality excellence, the property is well-positioned to drive incremental visitation and long-term value, which is highlighted on Page 11. We see a clear path to near-term growth at Tabacon through targeted operational enhancements and the benefit of recent investments, including the launch of the Choyin River Thermal attraction in March of 2024. With strong demand and ample hot springs capacity, we'll be actively deploying strategies that we expect will drive Tabacon adjusted EBITDA multiple down below 9x by year 3. Beyond an incremental to these operational gains, we're also evaluating meaningful Refresh and Build investments across the 570 acres of acquired terrain as well as potential buy investment opportunities for additional attractions and hospitality businesses in Costa Rica at attractive valuations to build a collection that will drive long-term value. Next, switching back to North America on Page 12. We're excited to announce another new refreshed growth project, the makeover of our Growth Mountain Lodge in Whitefish, Montana, which will transform and reposition this property in a high-demand affluent market near Glacier National Park. This investment will significantly elevate the guest experience through a renovation of 73 year-round guest rooms, corridors in the pool area, creating a more compelling upscale offering. We're also constructing a new wedding and events pavilion to grow market share in that segment. These enhancements are designed to increase demand, elevate the guest experience, and support higher ADRs. The project is on track for completion in 2026 with additional opportunities for incremental lodge improvements in future phases. Looking ahead on Page 13, we continue to have a compelling pipeline of both organic growth projects and acquisition opportunities to power our growth into the future. On the organic side, we've identified over $200 million in Refresh and Build investments that we believe can be executed over the next 5 years. These are focused on our existing high-performing experiences and include potential transformational future projects we're exploring like reimagining the Apgar Village properties in Glacier National Park and refreshing the Jasper SkyTram, which is the only aerial sightseeing experience in one of the world's most beautiful and well-visited national parks. In 2025, we expect to invest between $38 million and $43 million towards organic growth projects, including the Refresh investments at our Forest Park Hotel in Jasper and our Grass Mountain Lodge in Montana. Additionally, we invested in 2 new Ice Odyssey all-terrain vehicles to expand the premium tour experience on the Athabasca Glacier at the Columbia Icefield attraction in Jasper. And these growth projects are all designed to meet the demand from the mass affluent leisure travelers that are visiting our markets. We view Refresh and Build investments as one of our most efficient uses of capital, making guest experiences better, creating yield opportunities, and improving performance across our businesses. Raising quality makes our guests happier, and it drives our business performance. We have the flexibility to pace these investments in alignment with our second growth lever, which is strategic acquisitions of one-of-a-kind forever businesses. Our pipeline remains robust with opportunities in both existing geographies and in new iconic destinations. So our capital allocation strategy remains anchored in our proven Refresh, Build, Buy framework designed to drive long-term value creation and scale Pursuit in a thoughtful and sustainable way. That said, we also believe it makes sense to use our strong balance sheet to opportunistically buy back our own shares if the market fails to recognize our value. And I'm pleased to say that our Board recently approved a new share repurchase authorization for up to $50 million of Pursuit's common stock, reflecting our confidence in Pursuit's long-term growth trajectory. With a strong balance sheet and ample financial capacity, we're well positioned to pursue investments that enhance our guest offering, expand our footprint, and deliver compelling returns. And now I'll ask Bo to review our financial results and outlook for the balance of 2025.

Thanks, David. I'll start on Page 15 with our second quarter financial highlights. We delivered revenue of $116.7 million in the second quarter, which was up approximately 15% year-over-year. This growth was driven by continued momentum in guest demand and the compelling value of our experiences. Attractions ticket revenue growth, which I'll cover in more detail shortly, was particularly strong with healthy increases in both visitors and effective ticket prices. Net income attributable to Pursuit was $5.6 million as compared to $29.3 million in the prior year. The year-over-year change was primarily driven by the sale of GES in 2024. Income from continuing operations attributable to Pursuit was $4.5 million as compared to a loss from continuing operations of $0.4 million in the prior year. During the 2025 second quarter, we completed a legacy pension termination to improve long-term financial flexibility, resulting in a largely noncash pretax charge of approximately $5.4 million. Our adjusted net income, which excludes results of discontinued operations and other nonrecurring expenses, including the legacy pension termination charge, was $10.1 million as compared to $0.2 million in the prior year. The year-over-year growth primarily reflects higher adjusted EBITDA. Adjusted EBITDA increased by $9.8 million to $29.7 million, up nearly 50% year-over-year, primarily driven by significant revenue growth with strong margin flow-through, supported by a favorable mix of higher-margin attraction revenue and continued cost discipline. Now let's look at our second quarter attractions performance on Page 16. Attraction ticket revenue reached $53.2 million, reflecting a 22% year-over-year increase driven by higher effective ticket prices and increased visitors. Same-store constant currency effective ticket pricing, which excludes the recently acquired Jasper SkyTram, grew by 11% compared to 2024. We continue to see strong demand for our one-of-a-kind attractions. The Banff Gondola had standout performance during the quarter, and the Sky Lagoon continues to deliver strong growth in effective ticket price, primarily fueled by the expansion of the premium ritual experience, which was completed in August 2024. Next, let's turn to our second quarter hospitality performance on Page 17. Lodging room revenue totaled $26 million, reflecting a 6% year-over-year increase driven by higher ADRs and occupancy levels. Same-store constant currency RevPAR, which excludes the Forest Park Hotel's Woodland Wing and the recently acquired Apgar Lookout Retreat, grew 9% as compared to 2024. Our lodging properties are located in renowned experiential travel destinations with market compression and provide guests access to these beautiful places. All of our collections delivered growth in room revenue during the quarter. Room revenue was slightly offset by fewer rooms being available at the Forest Park Hotel's Woodland Wing, where large-scale renovations were underway on approximately half of the property's rooms. I am pleased to report that the first phase of these guest room renovations were complete for the start of the third quarter, and the next phase will commence during our off-peak season to minimize disruption during our peak summer season. Page 18 provides a view of our continued strong room booking pace for 2025. The charts on this page show our room revenue on the books for confirmed reservations as of August 4 across 3 years. Our U.S. lodging properties are pacing approximately 6% ahead of the same time last year, and our Canadian properties are up approximately 25% year-over-year. As a reminder, the 2024 Jasper room revenue on the books includes the impact of the wildfire, which started evacuations in Jasper National Park on July 22, 2024. Relative to 2023, our Canadian properties are up approximately 18% or 22% when adjusting for the impact of rooms taken offline for renovation at the Forest Park Hotel's Woodland Wing. This pacing supports our expectation that we will see strong perennial demand across our locations this year and a return to more normal levels of revenue across our Jasper properties. Let's turn to our 2025 outlook on Page 19. Based on continued demand for our authentic experiences, improved exchange rate trends, and the recent acquisition of Tabacon, we are raising our 2025 full-year guidance. We now expect full-year adjusted EBITDA of $108 million to $118 million, an increase of $10 million from our prior guidance range. The $10 million adjusted EBITDA guidance increase includes approximately $7 million from revised exchange rate assumptions and approximately $3 million from the Tabacon acquisition. This new guidance range represents substantial adjusted EBITDA growth of $31 million to $41 million relative to 2024. We expect the significant year-over-year growth to be primarily driven by continued strong demand and execution across our operations, the recovery of leisure travel to Jasper, and contributions from our recent acquisitions. This guidance accounts for certain assumptions, which are set forth in our earnings press release. With the anticipated rebound in Jasper, our continued focus on delivering exceptional guest experiences, and the strength of our balance sheet, we are well positioned to drive sustained growth and strategically invest in high-return Refresh, Build, Buy opportunities. And with that, I'll turn it back to David.

Thank you, Bo. As we move through what is shaping up to be a strong peak summer season, our teams across Pursuit are fully engaged in delivering exceptional experiences to guests in the iconic places we operate. I want to thank our team members for their passion, dedication, and growth mindset. You are amazing. They continue to create unforgettable memories for our guests every day. And to our shareholders, thank you for your continued support as we advance Pursuit's exciting growth journey. With that, let's open it up for questions.

Your first question comes from Jeff Stantial with Stifel.

Maybe just starting off on the guidance revision. So $10 million raise and Bo, you mentioned the split $7 million for FX and then $3 million contribution from Tabacon. I guess, should we read that to imply that operating trends have more or less been in line with your expectations on a constant currency basis? Or has there been sort of upside year-to-date with maybe a bit more conservatism implied in the back half?

Thanks, Jeff. Yes, I definitely align more with the idea that things were looking promising as we entered this year, with several favorable factors at play. These included the foreign exchange setup, certain geopolitical dynamics, ongoing investments in the business, and positive booking indicators we observed at that time. The Q2 results aligned well with our expectations, showing strong growth during that period, particularly when considering constant currency. Approximately $2 million of the total $7 million foreign exchange impact was realized in the year-to-date period. Additionally, as we look further into July, we have seen growth largely in line with our demand expectations. Overall, I feel optimistic about our positioning, and I believe we have accurately reflected this in our guidance, indicating a solid forecast for the full year.

That's great. And then shifting gears a little bit here and turning over to capital allocation. David or whoever wants to take this, could you just maybe add a little bit more color on the Board's decision to authorize a new buyback program? Specifically, how do you see the relative returns for Refresh, Build, Buy versus the implied yield of the current stock price? And then keeping in mind that this is going to be more of an opportunistic approach. Is there a velocity or an amount that we should think about as sort of a reasonable level, whether that's on a quarterly or an annual basis? And let me know if that sort of makes sense.

Thanks, Jeff. Yes, let me start, and then I'll hand it over to Bo. I think the way to think about the share repurchase is that if it is our view, which it is today that we are undervalued, that the market is undervaluing Pursuit, I think what's important is that the flexibility that a reauthorization provides us is really helpful. It is not a pivot. It's not all of a sudden we're abandoning Refresh, Build, Buy. It's actually the opposite, and that our focus is on Refresh, Build, Buy and continuing to do what we do. And so if you look at it just globally first and you think, do we have a robust pipeline? We sure do. Do we have some terrific targets in markets with things that match our criteria, right, perennial demand, really iconic attractions and places, big barriers to entry, targets that we believe would be very accretive? And so our 2 main levers of growth continue to be organic Refresh investments within our existing businesses and then our growth through acquisitions. What's important, though, is that despite us telling a very compelling story and going out and sharing that with anyone that will listen, if the market continues to undervalue us, I think that there is an opportunistic moment, which is an ability to step in. And this was something that certainly, the leadership team together with the Board, we all came to the same conclusion. And so what we've done is, I think, taken the prudent step to prepare ourselves should we be in that situation. And Bo, I'm sure you've got some add-ons to that.

Yes. I mean I would largely echo what you said, David, but maybe to make it even a little more clear, definitely, I wouldn't view this as like a programmatic approach. It's very much on the opportunistic angle relative to what David said there. And at its core, we still feel really good about our Refresh, Build, Buy opportunities and have a pretty solid track record for delivering high returns on those investments. And so in any given quarter, we're assessing the repurchases as a lever of that, we're going to be looking at the returns that we'd expect there relative to what we can do with investments in ourselves and Refresh, Build, Buy opportunities. So I wouldn't guide you to a specific dollar amount within there because it is going to be something that's pretty nuanced relative to other priorities that we're evaluating at the same time.

That's great. And if I could just squeeze in one quick housekeeping question. Bo, could you just remind us on your pro forma run rate effective tax rate? Specifically, we're thinking more cash taxes, but we'll take GAAP as well, if you have it.

Sure. Yes. Happy to give you some color on that, Jeff. So effective tax rate, certainly something that can fluctuate in any given year, partly given on jurisdictions on where we're generating income. But currently, I'd say we're expecting for FY '25 to come in around 31% to 35% from an effective tax rate perspective. I think the important thing to remember as you think about that, we have a smaller U.S. operational footprint and broader U.S. corporate costs associated with that. So we typically generate a loss in the U.S. And in the U.S., we're also still carrying valuation allowances for our deferred tax assets. So that effectively means that we don't recognize tax benefits on U.S. pretax losses. So other jurisdictions, I'd say we generally are paying typical tax rates more in line with what you'd expect, but that overall structure does result in a blended effective tax rate that's higher than statutory tax rates.

And just to be clear, that's cash that's GAAP or are they both pretty equivalent?

I'm talking more from a GAAP perspective, but I think it's a reasonable proxy than anything else at this point.

Your next question is from the line of Tyler Batory with Oppenheimer.

A question on the results here. I really want to double-click on the ETP growth, which I thought was really quite strong. Did you do anything differently this quarter than in the past to drive that? And what sort of margin benefit could that have if you're able to maintain and even grow further some of that pricing into the future?

Yes. So I would be remiss not to start with this is a relentless focus within this business, right? Delivering strong guest experiences enables opportunity to drive strong yield growth. And I would say that's the overall story that you're seeing. I think the biggest outlier within there that's driving outsized growth in that is on the Sky Lagoon side, which I know we've talked about in recent quarters, but we completed the Turf House expansion in late summer, early fall of last year. And as part of that, it was really shifting to only having a real premium option experience that we expanded the offering that enabled that. And so that's been driving strong ETP growth at that business that's carrying through as we complete our first year of operations after that expansion. So that's definitely an outsized driver there. I think the reality is what you're seeing more holistically in our Q2 results is when we have strong performance in particularly our attraction side of this business, it doesn't cost us much extra for that incremental volume or incremental yield. And so that translates to strong flow-through to an EBITDA and cash perspective. And it's part of the reason that we expect to be able to continue improving margins over time as a result of that. David, I don't know if you have anything else you want to add on that?

Yes. Tyler, I would add one thing, which is real credit to the team because I think their focus on a growth mindset. And by growth, I don't just mean the financial growth, but growth in guest experience, growth in experience design and the delivery of experience design and making things just fundamentally better across the company has a strong impact. And what that does, obviously, is then you're able to introduce new experiences, you're able to raise a price because you've justified it through quality. And I think you're seeing the impact of that. Bo's comments on flow-through are very appropriate and connected to the success that we've had. But just want to reinforce that growth mindset is something that when it happens across a scale of visitors across 17 attractions, it's quite powerful.

Okay. Good detail there. And then a bigger picture question on the current portfolio, then we can get into the recent acquisition. When I look at leisure travel broadly and really consumer spending, too, I mean, there's been fits and starts in the past few months. I think it's been pretty choppy depending on the industry, depending on what you're looking at. But clearly, your business is doing exceptionally well. And I really would like you to hit on this, perhaps it's something I think the market is ignoring or maybe just overlooking or missing. Just talk a little bit more and quantify for folks the organic same-store revenue growth in the quarter, zero in a little bit more on the Banff Jasper numbers a little bit in terms of the growth rates year-over-year and just articulate as well how you're able to grow revenue so quickly in the backdrop that I think broadly is pretty mixed out there.

Yes, I'll begin, and I'm sure my colleagues will add to this. If we look back, there were many doubts in the industry about whether travel would slow down and whether people would continue to spend. There was a lot of media speculation regarding travel tariffs and various issues. Internally, we performed as expected, with all our measurement systems indicating positive trends. Our strength lies in the enduring demand for travel, the appeal of iconic locations, the barriers to entry we maintain, and our continuous effort to enhance guest experiences. This has allowed us to effectively host visitors from around the globe and drive performance in our specific businesses, with significant contributions from our attractions. The team has shown relentless focus, and we perceive positive trends in how people are spending their time and resources. We believe our business is well-positioned to capitalize on these trends and are excited about what lies ahead in 2025, feeling very optimistic about the future.

Yes, I think that's correct, David. When we examine our U.S. operations in response to your questions, it's clear that a significant driver is the overall U.S. visitation that we see. This means there is generally less sensitivity to the international dynamics involved. You can see this in the industry data, as park visitation across locations like Glacier and Denali was up in the high single digits during Q2. We were also able to achieve strong results in our business. On the Canadian side, we've mentioned previously how currency fluctuations often lead many U.S. tourists to visit Canada, alongside Canadians traveling locally. The geopolitical situation enhances this trend, and the fact that some parks offered free admission this summer played a role as well. Year-over-year, we're seeing increased visitation in the Canadian national parks we manage. This aligns with David's description of our operational strategies and the experiences we provide, which performed exceptionally well. For instance, Banff had a particularly strong season in Q2, with notable performance from the Banff Gondola. Our lodging portfolio also saw substantial gains in RevPAR across the board, with Jasper performing especially well. Overall, the positive trends were evident across different regions.

Okay. Okay. Great. And then a follow-up on the Costa Rica acquisition. You gave some very helpful detail in the prepared remarks. I'm interested if you could speak to perhaps how long this deal was in the pipeline before you got it across the finish line. Talk a little bit more about why Costa Rica overall is so attractive to you in terms of building out another collection. And then when we think about some of the potential opportunities in terms of future acquisitions down there, interested if you could talk about the opportunity set and how it might complement what you just bought.

Costa Rica fits our criteria excellently. It's iconic, unforgettable, and inspiring, meeting the demand from all over the world. It excels in guest experience delivery and possesses barriers to entry, making it challenging to replicate. This, combined with the benefits of seasonal counter-cycling, significantly enhances Pursuit, and we are very pleased. It also has an outstanding management team, which is crucial for our future plans, as we consider this a foundational acquisition for building a collection around it. Reflecting on our history since 2016, we have successfully tripled in size. Founders often want assurance for their created assets when they let them go, and we have been committed to supporting the teams we lead, resulting in opened doors across various regions, as evidenced in Banff, Montana, and Alaska. We anticipate the same success in Costa Rica. Our approach will be cautious, but we are definitely planning to grow and build a collection there. The conversations for this deal took time, as some situations require longer negotiations. We are excited to announce this significant transaction in a new country just six months after it began on July 1. Costa Rica is now our fourth country, following the United States, Canada, and Iceland, and we believe great opportunities await us.

Your next question comes from the line of Alex Fuhrman with Lucid Capital Markets.

Congratulations on a strong start to the key season here and on the Tabacon acquisition. I wanted to follow up a little bit more on Tabacon. Can you give us a sense of what is the mix there in terms of lodging versus attractions and retail and dining and other services? And David, I think you alluded to some investments you're going to be making in the near term that are going to help get that effective EBITDA multiple down under 9x. Can you tell us what some of those investments are going to be?

Firstly, I want to clarify our current status. Following the close on July 1 and as we enter our busy season, our team in Costa Rica is focused on listening, learning, building relationships, and starting to plan our next steps. At this moment, I can't disclose the specific initial investments we plan to make for business growth. However, I believe we have a remarkable growth opportunity ahead. The property spans 570 acres, providing significant potential to enhance our attraction business. There are two impressive geothermal river attractions that have traditionally been considered more of a hotel amenity, but we see a great chance to develop a high-quality visitor experience in those areas. Additionally, the hotel operation has plenty of room for expansion. The property itself is beautiful and offers many opportunities for unique developments. It's not difficult to envision what we could do in Costa Rica with attractions and other experiences, moving beyond just offering a place to stay or activities for the day.

I would like to add some specifics regarding your question. It's important to highlight that achieving a multiple below 9x does not necessitate significant growth capital expenditures. This aspect was a key factor in our ability to make the investment we did. We see two main operational opportunities in the near term. First, the Tabacon Thermal River experience currently serves as an amenity for the hotel and has considerable capacity, especially during the day when hotel guests are not using it extensively. We will continue to explore ways to leverage this opportunity based on our insights. The second opportunity is the Choyin River experience, which is a capital investment that became available in March 2024, making it just over a year old. It is still ramping up in terms of volume as awareness increases, and while there hasn't been a significant marketing push yet, we believe there's potential for growth. We are collaborating with the local team to find ways to accelerate its development. Both of these represent tangible opportunities for us in the near term with minimal additional investment.

Okay. That's really helpful. And then switching gears to Canada. It strikes me that this is really the first year since 2019 that you're having a full season of the group travel business given the relatively late opening of the Canadian border and the Jasper wildfire last year. How is the group travel business looking compared to 5 years ago when it was last full strength? And I imagine your business with Chinese travelers is probably well below what it was in 2019. Are other countries replacing those visitors? And where might they be coming from?

What's interesting is that the return of tour and travel visitation isn’t just a matter of lights being strong in 2019, going out, and then mysteriously coming back on in 2025. It has been a gradual build. Looking at the years 2022, 2023, and 2024, we have seen growth in this segment and a return to more normal operations with tour and travel partners performing quite well. The level of demand in Canada is beneficial, especially with the Canadian currency exchange making Canada attractive to international visitors. Canada has a very positive international reputation and is welcoming to travelers from around the globe, which boosts interest. We’re also seeing strong performance in Alaska and Montana. Contrary to earlier concerns expressed on the call that people might not go out and enjoy themselves this summer, we observed the opposite from the start, and our expectations have been met, with our tour and travel business showing solid performance that we expect to continue. Different countries experience fluctuations; for instance, as airlift to North America increases, countries like China are catching up. However, travelers find their way here, with robust visitation from Japan, South Korea, and other markets. We have around 80 different countries sending visitors our way, and we see the tour travel market positively. It's essential to note that this isn't just travel during peak season; these operators are also booking for shoulder seasons as well, with tours typically starting in March and going through to the end of October. This creates a solid foundation of business and serves as a significant positive driver for us as we welcome visitors from around the world.

Your next question comes from the line of Eric Des Lauriers with Craig-Hallum.

Congrats on the strong quarter here. First one for me. You cited a favorable mix of attractions revenue as a contributor to the strong EBITDA in the quarter. In terms of overall longer-term strategies to increase margins, as you look at your buy-and-build strategies, is there any goal to increase the mix of attractions? Or does the long-term margin expansion really come from adding scale and depth within markets and not necessarily mix of attractions or lodging or restaurants or what have you?

Fundamentally, Eric, we're attractions first and then with vertically integrating hospitality, retail, and food transportation underneath that. And we focus on the opportunity within attractions because we believe in the very compelling economic power of the attractions business. So stuff we've talked about today on the call, flow-through, et cetera.

Okay. Great. And I guess just kind of double-clicking on that. I mean, is there a goal to sort of increase this mix that you have now? Or is it kind of just dependent on market to market and the opportunity that you guys see that's not necessarily baked into that longer-term plan here?

The benefit of having a robust pipeline is that we do have some pretty compelling opportunities. And again, you've got to work a pipeline to see if you can turn those opportunities into something more real. How I tend to think about it going forward is we've got some growth levers. And we've identified 6 really strong growth levers as we go forward. One being, obviously, market tailwinds that guests from around the world are looking for authentic travel experiences, and we think that's going to continue far into the future. Number two is quality and guest satisfaction. Fundamentally, when you make things better, guests are more satisfied. They tell their friends, they're willing to spend more. They're excited about what they're doing, and that drives the business. Thirdly, then price and volume. So when you have made something more attractive, you're able to charge more for it. And so continuing that focus on filling white space, dynamic pricing, price and volume metrics, then creating sub-experiences within an attraction experience for say, food and beverage or retail, everything from coffee to what you might have for dinner. All of those things are all connected into the delivery when you think of price and volume. Fourthly, cost discipline, high operating leverage on a fixed cost structure. Attractions are essentially once you reach your point of stability and you've got a view, then everything additional to that flows very, very directly. And so the flow-through is very strong. And I'll finish with the last 2, and we talk about these all the time, but it's organic growth investments within our existing businesses. And we're so lucky because across the world, 4,350 smart people delivering experiences in Pursuit. We have the leadership team, and everyone's got a growth mindset. And growth might be how do we make this experience a little bit better. And therefore, they've got ideas. They're brainstorming on what to do that we can expand and improve our existing businesses. And those are all well-instrumented existing businesses with little integration risk, markets we know really well, and we selectively make investments that the teams work on great ideas, and then we invest in them. And we've listed out some examples in the presentation of exactly those. And then there are things like build investments where we know coming forward, we've articulated on Jasper SkyTram. I mean, Jasper SkyTram is a phenomenal opportunity into the future, where we now own a fantastic aerial ropeway in Jasper National Park. And obviously, for decades to come, it won't operate the way that it does today, but we'll focus on improving it. We've got a long history of improving things within our businesses. And so our focus then is what can we build in the footprint of the Jasper SkyTram, and we're working closely with Parks Canada and others in terms of the planning of that. And as we have more news there, we're able to share it. And that's a really important thing because it's again something that's within our view. And the final growth lever is acquisitions, strategic tuck-ins with economies of scale and scope that fit our criteria for acquisitions in new geographies, increasing our total addressable market, greater diversification and economies of scale and scope as we create new collections and build. So yes, it's an exciting time for us.

Thank you, everyone, for participating in our second quarter earnings call. We appreciate your interest and wish you a fantastic afternoon. This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.