Tuniu Corp (TOUR) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Hello, and thank you for standing by for TUNEU's 2026 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After management's prepared remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the meeting over to your host for today's conference call, Director of Investor Relations, Mary.

Thank you, Zhu, and welcome to our 2026 First Quarter Earnings Conference call. Joining me on the call today are Donald Yu, 2 News founder, chairman, and chief executive officer, and An Changchen, 2 News financial controller. For today's agenda, management will discuss business updates, operation highlights, and financial performance for the first quarter of 2026. Before we continue, I refer you to our safe harbor statement in an earnings press release which applies to this call as we will make forward-looking statements. Also, this call includes discussions of certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our earnings release which contains a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. Finally, please note that, unless otherwise stated, all figures mentioned during this conference call are in RNB. I would now like to turn the call over to our founder, chairman, and chief executive officer, Donald Yu.

Thank you, Mary. Good day, everyone. Welcome to our first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. The travel industry maintained solid growth momentum in the first quarter of 2026, in part by the longest Chinese New Year holiday on record, with both domestic and outbound travel markets seeing stable growth. In the first quarter, our net revenues increased by 13 year-over-year. At the same time, we achieved non-GAAP profitability for the fifth consecutive quarter. This year, we will continue to strengthen both our supply chain capabilities and the sales channel development, supported by the company's strengths in products and industry insights. We aim to further enhance our travel resource space and business partnerships. We will also continue to leverage technologies to improve operational efficiency and deliver high-quality products and services to a broader customer base. Next, I will go through our core strategic initiatives in more detail. On the supply side, we will continue to expand our supplier network across areas such as car rentals, overseas hotels and the destination experiences. With the aim of further broadening our product offering, also we will integrate demand for both to you and our partners to further strengthen the advantages of our centralized procurement. While maintaining product quality and price competitiveness, last year, we added connecting flight solutions to our outbound travel products, expanding departure coverage and surveying more travelers from lower-tier cities. This year, we are extending our connecting flight solutions to domestic travel products, offering customers more flexible travel arrangements. For certain new tour products, we provide travelers departing from different cities across China with integrated flight solutions. In the event of delay to connecting flights, we will assist customers in completing the remaining segments of their journeys at no additional cost. Quality products continue to play an important role in attracting our customers and the participants. In line with this, NewTour has been one of our core high-quality organized tour products, supported by a relatively loyal customer base. Involving customer demand, NewTour products have expanded into long-haul and more complex destinations, including Africa and South America, we continued to introduce new premium outbound new tour products for experienced travelers, such as North America multi-definition itineraries covering the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, as well as South America, and received with many repeat customers. In terms of the domestic travel market, we see that customer demand is gradually shifting from traditional sightseeing towards more culture and experience oriented travel. In response, we have upgraded our organized tour products through introducing more in-depth itineraries. Focus on single destinations. Products reduce the number of stops within an itinerary, focus on core destinations and the selected site-seeing attractions and provide travelers with more time for exploration and local experiences. To further enhance the travel experience, many of these in-depth products are offered in small group and private group tour format. Certain new tour products also feature experienced senior tour guides to provide in-depth inventory for travelers, seeing that the number of self-guided travelers has continued to increase. To address the changing needs of this segment, we expanded our Hotel Club X offerings with hotels as the core component. For this, we have strengthened direct sourcing of resort hotels and increased procurement of other travel-related products to broaden our offering. In addition, supported by AI and dynamic packaging technologies, many self-guided travel products are now content driven for potential bookings, input relevant information, the system can automatically generate destination recommendations and the travel itinerary. Customers can then select their preferred elements to customize their own self-guided travel packages, which offers greater flexibility and personalization in the booking process. We continue to expand our channel. Also, together with our partners, we work to better identify customer needs across different channels and have accordingly adjusted our products and services to support product sales. In the first quarter, live streaming's contribution to our total transaction volume further increased to over 20%. Both payment and the verification volume continued to record double-digit year-over-year growth. As we continue to gain experience in live streaming and better understand customer preferences, We have introduced more targeted products for different customers' segments. For example, for senior travelers, we introduced European tour products with itineraries longer than 15 days. While for family-oriented customers, we promoted customized Singapore tours and private-group products. The initiatives improved customer acquisition efficiency and contributed to higher verification rates. In addition, we continued to extend live streaming to destination-based scenarios. For example, we conducted on-board live stream sessions from cruise ships, providing customers with a more direct understanding of destinations and helping drive both booking and verification. In the first quarter, our offline store business continued to grow, with transaction volume increasing by nearly 30 year-over-year. Offline stores continue to play an important role in the sales of organized tour products and the promotion of two new brands. We fully opened our systems and the product offerings to offline stores, enabling them to expand our reach into lower-tier markets and provide customers in lower-tier cities with access to a broader range of travel products, particularly outbound travel products. This year we plan to continue expanding our offline store network. In addition, we are further broadening our channel partnerships, backed by our solid supply chain, quality products and advanced technology tools. Our F2B2C model enables us to efficiently provide business partners with a broad range of products and services to meet the needs of their end customers. The creative approach creates value for both sides. Twiniu is able to connect the supply and demand more efficiently, lower customer acquisition costs and expand. While partners can offer high-quality travel products and services to better sell and retain their customers. Going forward, we will continue to expand our partner network and jointly a broader customer base. In terms of technology, we will continue to explore the application of of AI technologies across various business scenarios this year. Further, integrating automation tools into more operational processes. Ongoing upgrades and improvements to our regular operations. AI tools can assist employees in handling more repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus on more complex and innovative work. Customer-side technology tools such as itinerary recommendations, standalone product booking, and dynamic packaging provide customers with a more intelligent, convenient, and efficient booking experience. In particular, self-guided travelers can leverage AI-assisted tools to customize travel products based on their own preferences and needs. The travel market has seen a growing number of peak travel periods. Following the spring break and recent holidays in the second quarter, the summer travel season is approaching. This presents both opportunities and challenges. We will continue to strengthen the supply, sales, and service capabilities of our seasonal travel products and work closely with sales channel partners to provide more customers with simple convenience and high-quality travel experiences. I will now turn the call over to Banchang, our financial controller, for the financial highlights.

Thank you, Donald. Hello, everyone. Now, I will walk you through our first quarter of 2026 financial results in greater detail. Please note that ornamentary amounts are in RMB as otherwise stated. You can find the U.S. dollar equivalents of the numbers in our earnings release. Of 2026, net revenues were $132.6 million, representing a year-over-year increase of 13% from the corresponding period in 2025. Revenues from package tours were up 11% year-over-year to $109.7 million, and accounted for 83% of our total net revenues for the quarter. The increase was primarily due to the growth of online tours and self-guided tours. The revenues were up 24% year-over-year to $22.9 million and accounted for 17% of our total net revenues. The increase was primarily due to the increase in the fees for advertising services provided to Toys and Bolton bureaus. The profit for the first quarter of 2026 was $73.6 million, up 6% year-over-year. Operating expenses for the first quarter of 2026 were $77.3 million, down 4% year-over-year. Research and product development expenses for the first quarter of 2026 were $13.6 million, down 7% year-over-year. The decrease was primarily due to the decrease in research and product development percentile-related expenses. Sales and marketing expenses for the first quarter of 2026 were $50.5 million, up 17% year-over-year. The increase was primarily due to the increase in promotion expenses. The payroll and administrative expenses for the first quarter of 2026 were $13.5 million, down 41% year-over-year. The decrease was primarily due to the employment of property and equipment net recorded in the first quarter of 2025. Net income attributable to ordinary shareholders of two new corporations was $0.7 million in the first quarter of 2026. Non-capped land income attributable to ordinary shareholders of the new corporation, which excluded share-based compensation expenses and amortization of acquired intangible assets, was $2.6 million in the first quarter of 2026. As of March 31, 2026, the company had cash-and-cash equivalents, restricted cash, short-term investments, and long-term deposits of $1 billion. Capital expenditures for the first quarter of 2026 were $0.5 million. For the second quarter of 2026, the company expected to generate $134.9 million to $141.6 million of net revenues, which represents a 0% to 5% increase year-over-year. Please note that this forecast reflects two new current and preliminary views on the industry and its operations, which is subject to change. Thank you for listening. We are now ready for your questions. Operator?

The question and answer session of this conference call will start in a moment. In order to be fair to all callers who wish to ask questions, we will take one question at a time from each caller. If you have more than one question, please request to join the question queue again after your first question has been addressed. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Kathy Liu, a private investor. Please go ahead.

Hi, management. Thank you for the opportunity. Two questions here. First, we've seen the market conditions for the second quarter look relatively mixed. With the rollout of the spring break policy as a positive driver and the surging airfares at handwind, how will these factors impact our business? and my second one is about upcoming summer vacation could you kindly share some color on the booking trends that's all thank you firstly we are glad to see a lot of cities implemented minted spring break this year many of them arranged the break before teaming or Labor Day holidays forming a longer

vocation. It stimulates the growth of travels, especially near travels, in the domestic market. For example, we recorded over 50% year-over-year growth in the number of trips from April the 1st till the more during April the 1st to the third the number of trips for family tours tripled compared to the same period last year products featuring natural experiences theme parks and study tours were most favored by families with children. We've launched several spring break-oriented products in East China, which were welcomed by the parents. We plan to expand the destination coverage of autumn break products in the second half of the year. The increase of airfare prices is limited on long-haul products that often contain many travel resources other than airfare, so the risk can be mitigated by integrating other resources in the package. Coordinating with the suppliers, many long-haul outbound tour products maintain the same price despite the higher airfares. For domestic tours, we provide alternative travel solutions, connecting flights, train tickets, and car rental. Considering headwinds at certain outbound destinations as well as airfare price impact on short haul travels and air ticketing alone, we expect the revenues to increase up to 5% year-over-year in the second quarter. Second question about the summer vacation is still too early to tell. We have limited visibility towards the booking data due to short booking window, especially for domestic tours and the short haul outbound tours. Based on our insight, vaccinations with cooler weather such as Guizhou and Neimenggu will be on the hot list. Also as we see the shift from traditional sex scene to culture experience is undergoing. Cities such as Beijing and Datong will be popular. For long-haul outbound calc tours, the bookings are on the track. For example, so far we see the booking amount for package tours to America in July and August has already exceeded the same period last year. Thank you.

Once again, if you have a question, please press star then 1. We are now approaching the end of the conference call. I will now turn the call over to ThunYu's Director of Investor Relations, Mary, for closing remarks.

Once again, thank you for joining us today. Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions. Thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to speaking with you in the coming months.

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the presentation. You may now disconnect. Good day.