Saga Group announced preliminary results for the previous year concluding with January 31, 2023, reporting significant revenue growth, according to a statement.

Euan Sutherland, Saga’s Group chief executive officer, said: “Over the past year, through what continued to be a particularly challenging external backdrop, Saga made progress against its strategy while achieving significant revenue growth and returning to underlying profit.

“Our Ocean Cruise business continued to see strong customer demand and bookings for 2023/24 are on track to meet our targets. In travel, bookings are significantly ahead of the same point last year and that business will return to profit this year.”

According to the results, ocean cruise revenue was more than 100 percent ahead of 2021/22, supported by a full-year load factor of 75 percent and per diem of £318, compared to 68 percent and £299 in the prior year.

The company reported underlying loss before tax of £0.7m for the full year but with considerable improvement in the second half, when the business reported an underlying profit before tax of £6.2m

Additionally, ​​bookings for 2023/24 ocean cruises are strong, with a load factor of 72 percent and per diem of £339 on 26 March 2023. This places us on track to achieve our target of £40m EBITDA (excluding overheads) per ship.

Saga’s river cruise reported division revenue of £28.8m compared with £1.7m in the prior year while bookings for 2023/24 river cruises have increased by 23 percent compared to the same time last year.