Amadeus IT Group SA

MAD:AMS

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q1

[Operator]

Welcome to the Amadeus First Quarter 2022 Presentation Webcast. The management of Amadeus will run you through the presentation, which will be followed by a Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] I'm now pleased to hand over to you, Mr. Luis Maroto, President and CEO of Amadeus. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you.

[Luis Camino, executive]

Good afternoon, and welcome to our first quarter result presentation. Thank you for joining us today. As always, I joined by Till, I will focus on our most important developments in the quarter until we elaborate on the key financial aspects.

So let's start with Slide 4 for an overview of our results. In the first quarter of '22, our performance continued to advance towards recovery levels. As you can see, our quarterly revenue, EBITDA and adjusted profit reached 65%, 50% and 28% of 2019 levels, respectively. The continued strengthening of our performance was supported by progress in global traffic and travel volumes. At the beginning of the quarter, Omicron slightly slowed us down. However, through February and March, volumes quickly recovered driving our best quarterly performance in recent times. As you will see our performance improved across our segments.

On our distribution revenues amounted 56% of quarter 1 '19 levels driven by our bookings evolution supported by industry recovery and strong market share gains. Mineral IT Solutions, our revenue reached 74% of '19 supported by a traffic evolution. And in hospitality and other solutions, our revenue reached 85% of the same year, supported as well by industry recovery. and continued customer growth across our broad portfolio of solutions in hospitality. Our revenue progress supported EBITDA generation of almost EUR 300 million in the quarter.

Till will elaborate on the details later, allowing us to deliver free cash flow of EUR 125 million or EUR 143 million, excluding implementation costs paid in the quarter. This is pertaining to our cost saving plan completed last year. Our free cash flow in the quarter compared to the last quarter of last year, had a working capital outflow caused by our volume seasonality. In the first quarter, we continue to see R&D pick up relative to last year to support new customer implementation projects and to advance in our investment plan.

We are focused on investing for the future in several fronts. To name a few, we are evolving our hospitality platform, investing in NDC into [indiscernible] merchandising offering, our cloud acceleration and also our co-innovation partnership with Microsoft. Our leverage has been improving, supported by the strengthening of our cash flow generation and closed the quarter at 3.4x last 12 months EBITDA. To finish, I will recap on how we are seeing things overall. And please, setting aside the geopolitical and macroeconomic scenarios we have because we don't know what effect this may have on travel in the coming quarters. We have seen good momentum in the quarter. Travel restrictions are being lifted. We are seeing volume improvement across our businesses and regions. Our best-performing region is clearly North America, APAC remains our slowest region, but it will support our growth as it continues to recover.

In March, we saw a strong recovery in international traffic. Regarding corporate travel, the weight of our bookings through the TMC channel got very close to 2019 levels in March and April. Very positive commentary from the U.S. and European airlines and hotel change these past weeks on corporate travel growing as well. From our Hospitality business, Intelligent Solutions Demand360, we see hospitality group business in the U.S. in June 2022, exceeding the levels of the same month in 2019. This is an extremely positive indicator of people's confidence to meet again. Everything is moving in the right direction, and it translates into our financial performance becoming more and more robust with growing revenue and stronger EBITDA and free cash flow generation.

Please now turn to Slide 5 for an overview of the three reported segments. I will begin with an update on our distribution. In the first quarter of the year, we signed 21 new distribution contracts or renewals of agreements with airlines. We also expanded our partnership on the travel agency side, with, for example, Travel Advisors Guild and we became ATPI's primary global technology partner. As part of our ongoing partnership with Microsoft to innovate in travel, in March, we were pleased to announce Cytric Easy. Cytric, our self-booking tool and is bank's management tool for corporations, has been embedded in Microsoft 365. Users will be able to plan trips and serve travel details with a leading Microsoft Outlook Calendar or Teams. Melia Hotels international signed for this functionality in the quarter.

In relation to our bookings evolution, bookings in the first quarter were up 56% of 2019 levels, progressing almost 6 points from the fourth quarter of last year with progress happening across regions. Monthly volume performance improved as we advanced in the quarter and in the month of March, volumes were 33% lower than in 2019. And in April, volumes further improved to minus 29% versus '19. Our bookings evolution in the quarter of minus 44% was supported by industry recovery and strong market share gains. The EDS industry continued to improve quarter-on-quarter growing minus 48.4% versus the first quarter of '19, and region and country mix continues to distort market share evolution. Not without understanding this, Amadeus had a strong market share performance, gaining share globally and in most regions, particularly in North America, our best-performing region in the quarter.

On Slide 6, for Airline IT. We have several new PSS customer wins this quarter. ITA Airways, the Italian flagship carrier contracted for the full Altea PSS suite and a broader scope of solutions. Altea NDC and the Digital Experience Suite well as revenue management, dynamic pricing, merchandising, data management and passenger servicing solutions. Iraqi Airways is also contracted for the full Altea PSS suite. Allegiant Air, a U.S. low-cost carrier contracted for our New Skies PSS and so did Akasa Air, a new Indian low-cost carrier airline created to tap on the growing long-term prospects for domestic travel in India. To recap on our larger PSS wins announced recently, we estimate that together ITA Airways, Allegiant Air, Hawaiian Airlines and Etihad will bring Amadeus in aggregate 60 million passengers boarded annually. This is broadly estimated and on a pre-pandemic basis. We are then disclosed Altea customer win in'20. In '20, which on the same basis will bring 40 million PB, we arrived at an estimated, contracted but not implemented EUR 100 million PB. Again, amounts corresponding to pre-pandemic levels.

Turning to our upselling activity in the quarter, Tunisair, Bangkok Airways,Philippine Airlines and Garuda contracted additional solutions and capabilities from our airline IT portfolio such as revenue accounting and revenue management. We also recently announced the acquisition of Kambr, which is a start-up specialized in revenue management solution for airlines. In Airport IT, we continue to expand our customer base in the quarter with additions of Keflavik Airport, Tulsa International and Ontario International Airport among others. With regards to our volume performance in the first quarter, passengers boarded reached 61% of 2019 levels.

As you can see, [ no APBEs ] strengthened through the quarter and into quarter 2, APBEs have further advanced reaching minus 30% versus '19. Several regions saw large improvements in performance quarter-over-quarter, most notably in North America. This has been our first reason to report positive quarterly PB growth versus pre-COVID levels. Our North America PB positive growth was driven by the recovery in air traffic in the region and also our airline migrations, most importantly, that of Air Canada, which migrated at the end of '19.

Please turn to Slide 7 for an update on our Hospitality segment. In the first quarter, we continue to expand our customer base in hospitality with new customer signings for our business intelligence, sales and event management and media solutions. Hospitality industry continued to strengthen through the quarter with global hotel occupancy rates in February and March, very close to pre-pandemic levels. Furthermore, looking at occupancies in the coming months, April, May and June, all are ahead of the same month in '21, providing continued optimism for increasing traveler confidence. Hospitality advance its performance, 10 points relative to prior quarter, reaching 85% of 2019 revenues coming close to recovery -- full recovery.

It has been our best performing segment for some time. It is less exposed to air traffic and has also benefited from a higher weight of nontransaction-based revenues. Hospitality business, we generated a majority of this segment's revenue, so the steady progress in its performance, supported by strong revenue growth rates across its revenue lines. With this, I will now pass on to Till for further details on our financial performance.

[Till Streichert, executive]

Thank you, Luis. Hello, everyone. Please turn to Slide 9 for an overview of our revenue in the period. In the first quarter, our group revenue was 34.8% below 2019, advancing from prior quarter driven by stronger growth rates across all segments. In air distribution, revenue in the quarter was 44.1% below 2019. This revenue performance was primarily driven by the bookings evolution Luis described, and by distribution revenue per booking, 0.8% lower than in 2019.

The lower revenue per booking in 2022 versus 2019 was due to the higher weight of local bookings produced by the higher rate of domestic travel, we still have now and a higher booking cancellation provision versus 2019, which also moves with the bookings inventory and has increased with volume growth. These negative effects I've mentioned were also partly offset in the quarter by positive effects, including: Firstly, revenues not linked to bookings evolution performing better than bookings revenue. For example, revenues from solutions provided to travel agencies and to corporations. And secondly, the usual various pricing impact, which may come from yearly price adjustments, incremental deals, renewals and others.

It is not easy to foresee how all of these parts may move in 2022 and but we reasonably expect the dynamics I've mentioned to largely persist over the next few quarters. And for the resulting revenue per booking generally behave along -- to behave along these lines, that is to range between a bit higher or a bit lower than the revenue per booking we had in 2019. With regards to IT Solutions, revenue in the quarter was 25.9% below 2019. This result was driven by the PB volume evolution, coupled with a 22.5% higher revenue per PB relative to 2019. The higher revenue per PB is caused mainly by a proportion of Air IT revenues that is either not linked to PB or does not flex with PB in the current environment, such as, for example, services, or Airport IT, which reported much stronger growth rates in the quarter than the PB and the PB linked revenues.

Over the coming quarters, as traffic continues to recover, we will likely see the revenue per PB trending downwards towards the pre-COVID levels. There are positive effects as well that will typically support the evolution of revenue per PB, such as upselling, inflation and other pricing impacts.

Regarding hospitality and other solutions. Revenue in the first quarter was 15.2% below 2019. For hospitality, the quarter-on-quarter performance improvement versus 2019, was seen across its revenue lines as described by Luis within hospitality, hospitality IT had stronger CRS and sales and event management revenue growth. Media and Distribution was driven by improving hotel and car booking growth rates and business intelligence also strengthened, driven by new customer implementations.

Please now turn to Slide 10 for a review of EBITDA -- of our EBITDA evolution in the quarter versus the same quarter in 2019 as we've done with volumes and revenue. In the first quarter of 2022, our EBITDA amounted to EUR 296 million, 50.3% lower than in 2019, resulting from, firstly, the revenue evolution explained before, Secondly, lower cost of revenue than in 2019 by 43.1% linked to the booking volumes evolution. And thirdly, a 7.6% decrease in our combined personnel and other operating expense cost line compared to 2019. To review our fixed cost evolution, we will focus on the change relative to 2021. Please remember, we completed our cost optimization program last year, and thus, there are no more associated implementation costs in the P&L in 2022, but we continue to remove these from the 2021 P&L for comparison purposes.

Our P&L fixed cost in the first quarter of 2022 compared to the same quarter last year were 13.5% higher, in line with our plans and expectations. This cost evolution resulted from an increase in R&D investment, as Luis mentioned, and in discretionary spend like travel and training spend among others, driven by the business expansion relative to prior year. Costs have also been impacted by negative FX effects. Taking together this quarter's P&L fixed cost and CapEx, we had a 13.4% increase over prior year, which we estimate at 10.9%, excluding FX, in line with the 10% to 14% fixed cost growth range expectation we have for the year.

Please note, this cost growth range is excluding FX as the U.S. dollar has appreciated considerably versus prior year, and this has had and could continue to have a negative impact on our cost evolution versus 2021 on a reported basis. This is more than compensated at EBITDA level as FX is also positive on revenues versus 2021.

For the second quarter, we are expecting the P&L fixed cost and CapEx growth to step up from Q1, driven by the salary increases, which take place in Q2. This is as planned, and we reiterate our cost growth expectation for the year. I would like to add also that in Q2, we will benefit from a onetime positive effect related to a government grant, which will lower our fixed costs and increase our EBITDA and free cash flow by approximately EUR 50 million. Below EBITDA, in Q1 2022, compared to 2021, G&A expense decreased by 3.5%, mainly due to lower depreciation expense linked to a reduction in hardware at our data center in Erding.

Net financial expense increased by EUR 6 million despite a reduction in interest expense from a lower average gross debt over the period, mostly due to higher exchange losses. The income tax rate in the quarter was 24% lower than in 2021, impacted by a reduction in income tax rates in France and nonrecurring adjustments. Supported by the EBITDA evolution, adjusted profit amounted to EUR 95 million in the first quarter of 2022, and this marks now the third consecutive quarter of positive adjusted profit generation.

Please turn to Page 11 to review our cash flow evolution. I will start with CapEx. In the first quarter of 2022, our CapEx increased by EUR 40 million or 13% compared to the same quarter in 2021, driven by higher capitalized R&D investment. R&D investment grew by 19.1% in the quarter versus 2021. We CapEx was EUR 30 million lower this quarter than previous quarter, mainly due to the office investments carried out and implementation CapEx from our cost optimization program during the last quarter of 2021. With regards to free cash flow, excluding cost saving program implementation costs paid in the quarter, we generated an amount of EUR 143 million.

We will still have some cash out this year related to our cost optimization program completed last year, but the amounts outstanding going forward are very small. Our free cash flow in Q1 benefited from expanding EBITDA compared to prior quarter and a lower CapEx amount, but it also had a cash outflow from change in working capital. The change in working capital outflow was largely driven by timing differences in collections and payments versus revenues and costs impacted by the quarterly seasonality in our volumes. For the next quarter, please note, we also expect a cash outflow from working capital as we typically have in the second quarter due to our annual personnel related payments. And with this, we have now finished the presentation, and we are ready to take any questions you may have.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions]-- the first question comes from Adam Wood from Morgan Stanley.

[Adam Wood, analyst]

Good to see such a strong start to the year. So, congratulations on that. I've got two pieces. The first one is around market share. I think this is the first time for a little while that you've alluded to market share gains and talked about strong market share gains despite the negative regional mix. If I just compare you to the main competitor back to 2019, it looks on the air side as if there's been about an 8-point market share shift. I mean I wonder whether you could talk, first of all -- is that the kind of order of magnitude that you're seeing in the market? And is there anyone else in the GDS landscape that you'd see taking market share as well as you versus that main competitor?

That was the first one. And maybe secondly, just on the cost plan. I wonder if you could give us just a little bit of a feel for the discussions that you have with your customers in terms of the projects they want to do, the demand that's starting to come back. You've obviously been cutting projects due to COVID over the last couple of years. Do you feel that scope of cost plan enables you to meet the demand that's starting to come in from customers and satisfy the R&D demands that are happening? Or is there a potential for you to look at that as we go through the course of this year and accelerate the cost growth because you see stronger revenue growth and stronger potential in future years?

[Luis Camino, executive]

Alan, thanks for your questions. I mean with regards to market share, we are not giving specific numbers because, I mean, it's quite subjective, everything related to the mix effects, you can have mix effects today still per country, per region. This is why, I mean, we consider -- its subjective to really provide specific figures. But I mean, you can see the evolution from '19 -- I mean -- and you have also seen how the GDS is doing compared to how we are doing. What I can tell you is that, yes, we feel we have strong market share gains. And again, it depends how you consider still the region mix compared to 2019. But when we analyze individual regions and individual markets, we are pleased with the evolution, and that's why we have reported that overall no matter what, we are having good commercial traction. But again, with all the respect to what competitors are doing and may do in the future.

With regards to the second point, I mean, no, our costs increase yes, of course, is related to the fact that we see opportunities, but also the fact that we have signed a number of customers, and we have alluded to them. In Airline IT, there is a lot of implementations ongoing. It was part of our original plan and our original range. We already guided you about how we saw this year. So we were considering already some of these opportunities with customers, of course -- I mean, let's see how things evolve in the coming months. There will be a point where we will see we keep signing. But clearly, there is an opportunity today. I mean the whole industry is thinking about recovery. I mean with regards to COVID, I have already alluded to that in my presentation. Some things are evolving on a positive way, of course. We should not be isolated from the economic and geopolitical environment that may impact the recovery.

But from the pandemic, we feel that there is optimism in the industry, and therefore, there are opportunities for us to keep increasing signing customers, and therefore, invest in the areas that we consider will provide us an opportunity, both in terms of getting these customers on board and migrating them into our system or investing in areas that can provide with further opportunities. So definitely, the answer is, yes, there are opportunities in the market, and we will invest according to that. However, I still explain, we are keeping our guidance that we provided you at the beginning of the year.

[Operator]

The next question comes from [indiscernible] from JPMorgan.

[Unknown Analyst]

Congratulations on the good start to the year. So two for me, please. So Q1, you mentioned your performance depends on the global air traffic evolution with IATA back then forecasting minus 40% versus 2019 in October, it seems that your volumes are a little bit ahead of that. So can you comment on the visibility you have into the remainder of the year? Are bookings coming through further in advance? And then a lot of airlines and airports are struggling with staff shortages, and we see flights getting canceled. Is that affecting your business? And then secondly, on the hospitality. Can you comment on the pipeline you're seeing for your CRS and PMS solutions? And can you give an update on the Marriott deal, please?

[Till Streichert, executive]

Shall I start with the volume question.

[Luis Camino, executive]

Yes.

[Till Streichert, executive]

Just on this one. So IATA actually issued in just -- I think it was at the beginning of March, actually, they issued an updated forecast where they introduced -- where they were referring to passengers boarded or passengers basically, origin destination and they called out a minus 17% for 2022 in terms of growth expectations. So previously, IATA had been talking about RPKs. And if you basically translate that back, it's probably approximately minus 30% compared to 2019 from an RPK level. So if you now put this into perspective, IATA had already updated their forecast and improved it compared to what has been there last year. where are we compared to this? I think we are quite pleased with the volumes where we are. So therefore, what we see in terms of AIT solutions, passengers bought it minus 30% in April. And equally close to that, minus 29% of bookings in April, is putting us on a good trajectory. And again, we are hopeful we are seeing very positive signals and signs in the market. But of course, there's also some macroeconomic or macro geopolitical uncertainty, and we need to watch that.

[Luis Camino, executive]

Just to clarify, I mean, the latest IATA reference is around minus 32% compared to the minus 40. And again, as we mentioned, okay, you need to consider the first quarter was below this figure. Now we are trending in the minus 30%, more or less in PBs. Let's see how things evolve in the future, okay, to see if we can get this minus 32%. I mean, things look positive, but I still mentioned, there are some uncertainty about how the current economic environment may impact the recovery. With regards to hospitality, of course, we keep investing in our CRS and PMS. We hope to be able to regather additional customers.

We have good opportunities and a good pipeline very difficult to really talk more about that. We have already explained to you that we feel the opportunities there. And the potential is there. And hopefully, we should be able to really get more customers into our platform. And you also asked about Marriott. So far so good. I mean, look, we have a plan. We have been debating in detail with the scope of the project and the timing of the project. And for the time being, the collaboration between both companies is strong and the project is moving ahead as planned.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Sven Merkt from Barclays.

[Sven Merkt, analyst]

Could you maybe speak a bit more about inflation and how this is impacting the business? Maybe on the pricing side, what proportion of your contracts allow you to increase prices for inflation? And what kind of price increases should we expect in the current environment? Would be also interested to hear if you're holding back any price increases that you could theoretically push through to support your customers and their recovery. And then on the cost side, what kind of wage inflation are you seeing? And are there any measures you can take to kind of mitigate maybe some of the cost pressure there?

[Till Streichert, executive]

So on the inflation side, inflation impact our revenue line, and we've got various clauses and that are basically inflation linked. And through those clauses we can pass on part of the inflation that we see. So you would see obviously a positive impact from that. On our cost of revenue, we do not have that. So our main lines are incentives, and they don't have inflationary clauses included. And on the P&L fixed cost, we've covered that before. Here we are obviously assessing the situation on a country-by-country basis in order to be competitive from a salary point of view. And again, some markets have got high inflation rates. For example, like India. Other markets have got lower inflation rate, but you can assume that we are trying to be always competitive from a salary or from a wage inflation point of view. And this is obviously representing the largest part of our cost lines.

[Sven Merkt, analyst]

Okay. That is very clear. Just maybe one follow-up just on the capital allocation plan. Given that you're now recovering, how do you -- will prioritize restart the dividend versus deleveraging and M&A and maybe other uses of capital?

[Till Streichert, executive]

So we, obviously, are on a good track in terms of profit generation for this year. That's the first point, and that's different to last year where we, obviously, had not achieved a positive profit yet. This puts us in a position where, of course, we can start considering and thinking about the dividend or dividend. And we would, of course, like to return back to shareholder remuneration, respectively, value creation in that regard. But of course, it's equally true that we would like to perhaps deleverage further before we immediately come back to dividend paying. But again, these things are at the current stage, a little early to say. Let us first have our objectives achieved for this year, and then we can discuss that question, and we will also inform you accordingly.

[Operator]

Next question comes from Neil Steer from Redburn.

[Neil Steer, analyst]

I just got a couple of quick ones, if I may. The first one is I appreciate the figures. Obviously, you're making market share gains in distribution. Clearly, North America and Expedia wholesale deal is part of that, but could you give us a little bit of color on where outside North of America you think you are improving market share? Are there -- is there sort of 1 or 2 particular regions?

[Luis Camino, executive]

I mean we have already mentioned to you the signature of some of the customers where we can announce such as ATPI, which is outside of North America. I mean this is happening in general, well across the board, I would say. So we are having good traction. Yes, by all means, Expedia is the biggest generation. But even excluding Expedia, and not considering mix effects, I mean, as I mentioned, which are always a bit tricky, okay? How do we consider that? We are getting good traction in many parts of the world. So I would say it's quite across the board, okay? You may have, in some specific markets, of course, it's not that we are not losing any customer, but overall, another basis, Neil. I mean, as I mentioned, excluding Expedia, we keep market share gains. So it's been a positive -- overall, a positive year.

[Neil Steer, analyst]

Okay. And Till, you were very sort of precise, I suppose, with your guidance on what you expect for the average GDS fee this year. You kind of implied that 2019 level plus or minus what you saw in Q1, I think to plus or minus [ 1% ] or thereabouts. Could you give us a little bit more precision and guidance on the sort of expected or blended PB fee? Is that possible?

[Till Streichert, executive]

So remember, at the moment, we are still in an environment where our PB fee is elevated due to the higher share of the nontransaction-based elements in it. It had started to trend downwards as expected. I still expect that from here, where we are now that it continues to trend downwards. But look, I mean seeing it through the quarter. Again, we are still above -- well above 2019 levels as we are now. We are enjoying that benefit, obviously. But again, if you just think of it, think of it that the expectation is that with the volume increase and recovery, every quarter, there should be a bit of a step down.

[Neil Steer, analyst]

Okay. And just one final question, if I may. Obviously, before the pandemic, you saw a flurry of airlines move away from the traditional fuller content deals some wishing to move to the general distribution arrangements and implement surcharging strategies and so forth. As we come out of the pandemic and you resigned content deals with airlines. Does that sort of trend persist? And are we moving gradually away from the fuller content deals? Or have we sort of exited that flurry migration towards the general distribution arrangement?

[Luis Camino, executive]

I think it's difficult to really give you a complete answer. There may be some airlines are still there. But of course, it's our role to convince them about the capability of our platform and the distribution options and benefits of the indirect channel. So I will say, in general terms, yes. But again, that will be still some airlines that are keeping that logic as it happened in 2019.

[Operator]

Next question comes from Michael Briest from UBS.

[Michael Briest, analyst]

A couple from me. Just Till on that EUR 50 million sort of one-off government grant, was that embedded in your guidance when you gave it at the start of the year? So is the 10% to 14% increase assuming that, that EUR 50 million comes in? Or are you going to treat it as an exceptional item, if you like, and sort of add it back? And then on the inflation side, you mentioned the incentive fees aren't index-linked. Presumably, it's true then of the GDS revenue related to that. And can you say on the Air IT side, to what extent indexation is embedded in any of the deals you have there? Because I'd imagine particularly with the industry coming out of a crisis. Airlines are going to be quite resistant to any recovery. And just a tiny little add on, on Asia, it's still very weak. Can you give any sense of -- is this caused by the Chinese lockdowns or how much better things trended in April, perhaps?

[Till Streichert, executive]

On the first question in terms of the EUR 50 million, that, in fact, is an exceptional and one-off item, and it was not included in our cost guidance. So technically speaking, if you would now put this into this, the guidance range would obviously be lower, okay? But again, it's a one-off, and it is a Q2 event, and you will see it as well as they are disclosed, and we just wanted to mention it to give you advance notice of basically the expectation of our cost and EBITDA for the second quarter. On the second question in terms of incentive fees or inflation, so you have in both also in distribution and in Air IT clauses that allow us to pass on inflation automatically. We have elements where we are negotiating as well these clauses. It's true there are also certain caps and certain ratios involved, but you have in both distribution and Air IT, those inflationary increases coming through.

[Luis Camino, executive]

Yes. With regards to Asia, I mean, we -- you are right, Asia has been the latest region in terms of recovery, and we have a balanced performance there. I mean, as you know, China itself is not impacting us due to the fact that we are not operating in China, but of course, it may have an impact in some international traffic in the rest of the region, okay, an indirect impact there. When we talk about Asia today, I mean, we have seen a strong recovery in some markets. let's say -- I mean Australia and New Zealand, India have recovered strongly and still some way to go for some countries such as Korea or especially Japan, where, as you know, we are a strong player and still they are having quite high restrictions in terms of travel, especially for international [indiscernible]. So hopefully, they will keep coming back and this should improve our worldwide performance. But again, let's see how things evolve in the future, but overall positive performance in Asia with some countries lagging behind.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Victor Cheng from Bank of America.

[Hin Fung Cheng, analyst]

Couple, if I may. First one, I appreciate, Adam you have asked about it already your market share, but can you comment maybe which region that you think has been the weakest potentially and that you have potential to grow more? And then secondly, thinking about revenue per booking in the medium term when volume and mix normalizes. Should we expect the revenue per booking to trend to pre-COVID levels give a duction from Expedia win arguably different dynamics in distribution versus pre-COVID? And lastly, given the number of PSS wins that you announced this quarter, has [indiscernible] spend changed in the last volume recovers?

[Luis Camino, executive]

Okay, let me come back. Again, I already mentioned about the market share. I mean, look, our goal is to increase our share. I mentioned already that, yes, you see in the figures that the strongest performance was in North America, but the potential is everywhere. Of course, the bigger you are in one market, sometimes it's more difficult, even though when you have a high market share, I mean you have some traction and [indiscernible] in the market. But overall, I mean, our goal is not to focus on specific parts of the world, but try to keep growing everywhere. So the potential, in our view, is not specific to one specific market or region. Of course, in the U.S., we have had increases during years, which we are pleased of that. But again, there is no specific focus on our market. But overall, in each single market, we should try to really keep growing. The second question, will you take it Till?

[Till Streichert, executive]

I would reiterate on the revenue per booking, what I said before in terms of trend. So I would expect that we see that we move ourselves kind of to the year 2019 levels, plus then, obviously, what you saw through the inflation or what you're seeing or what you expect through the inflationary increases in the last 2 years that happened. And of course, the remainder of it is basically commercial negotiations, et cetera, et cetera. So without being -- without implicitly commenting on Expedia, I would reiterate the expectation in terms of trend of revenue per booking going back to 2019 levels and from there, behave similarly to what we've seen before.

[Luis Camino, executive]

I mean appetite for IT. I mean, look, the answer is yes. Overall. We all feel that -- I mean, IT is important for all the industries, including our industry as we try to optimize and try to really sell better and the relationship with the customers. So all the customers are looking for ways to really improve their performance, and we are in a good position to provide with the software that is needed on the solutions for them to really address their needs. Of course, when you are in the middle of the crisis, some airlines have reduced because of the need to really adjust that. And hopefully, as the volumes recover and see the financial situation of our customers improve, well, they will be keen to really keep investing even though during the pandemic, we have also seen the opportunity of some customers to really take and do some investments in automating and improving and accelerating their digital capabilities. So I will say opportunity is there. And hopefully, we will be able to really provide our technology to that.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Ferdinando Abril from [ Elantra ].

[Unknown Analyst]

I have a couple, please. First, so with regards to the bookings and PBs evolution in April, I would like to better understand the performance on region by region. I mean, you've mentioned that a APAC is still lagging behind, but Australia, New Zealand and some of the countries are now recovering strongly. I would like to better understand who is -- which region is the main driver for strong trading update, no? And second question is with regards the hos business. So I don't know if you can give us an update with revenues performance in April. Just as you've mentioned in PBs in bookings, it would be very helpful compared to 2019. And also, considering the evolution of this business, I don't know if you are you are -- you think that the hos business could reach pre-pandemic revenues by the end of the year?

[Luis Camino, executive]

Let me start with the last one, and then Till, you can take the first one. I mean, we are not providing hospitality because, as you know, we are not having any specific API as we do with the other two businesses that mainly is giving us the same information about that because not everything is linked to one specific KPI we could use. I mean you have seen the figures in terms of revenue. So this is a business that overall has been more resilient. The prospects are positive about the occupancy rates. And also in April, they have been positive and evolving in a positive way, okay? Similar to what is happening in the rest of the industry, and I have provided you with some information we have on some data that in terms of summer, is in some areas, okay, and mainly, you need to consider our high weight in the U.S. in this part of the business. So is looking positive. So look, that's what we see in hospitality, the same we have seen with the rest of the business.

[Till Streichert, executive]

In terms of market shares and regions, just at a high level, we have seen that Asia Pacific actually had -- was leading the step-up in April versus March. So that was strong, followed by Western Europe, which also has moved further ahead. We had some regions that performed consistently. And that's kind of more or less related to Ramadan seasonality in Middle East Africa. We had a bit of a setback. But overall, if you look at it on a global level, we, obviously, have seen, again, improvement month-on-month from March into April. .

[Operator]

Thank you. There are no further questions in the conference call. I now give back the word to Mr. Luis Maroto for final remarks.

[Luis Camino, executive]

So thanks a lot for attending the call and for your questions and looking forward for the second quarter results at the end of July. Thanks a lot.