Viad Corp (NYSE:VVI) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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And so it was very hard for tour and travel partners to secure airlift. So we see that growing into 2024. And yes, there’s quite an interesting balance between not being over-allocated to one country. And so we try to maintain what we call a competitive position between countries that you can never give everyone all of the space that they want. And so you’re balancing demand from various countries in order to hit your highest potential. So our visitation from Western Europe, obviously, strong demand; Australia, New Zealand returning with significant demand; Korea as a market is strong. India is a developing market but the size of the affluent class in India that can travel internationally and be focused on that is quite large. And so we see that as a growing market into the future.

So these things historically tend to balance out. And if one country lags behind for a few years, there’s opportunity to replace that with visitors from other locations. As we get closer into the beginning of the 2024 season, we’ll have a better sense as to who’s going to fulfill what level of commitment that they’re making today, because obviously when it comes down to deposit time and going firm on the booking that will be a sign. But all signs point to quite positive demand for both 2024 and 2025.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Tyler Batory from Oppenheimer. Your line is open.

Tyler Batory: Great. Thanks for taking my follow-up questions here. So I wanted to ask about Spiro and the margin there a little bit more. I mean I know you’re making some investments. Steve, I think you mentioned some investments in talent there. Just — is that kind of a one-year thing? I mean what is your outlook in terms of maybe pulling back on some of those, or is that just something you think you need in order to really ramp up the growth trajectory in that business?

Steve Moster: Yes. Thanks, Tyler. And we started this journey a little bit ago and we’ve indicated that the goal is to build a world-class experiential agency. We are well on our way. We have added resources to the team in order to build out new capabilities to serve our existing clients as well as to attract new clients. We’ve had a few quarters of where we have made those investments. We feel like we’re coming towards the end. I won’t say that we are completely finished but the level or the pace at which we’re adding will come down, because we’re really getting to that point where we feel like we have the appropriate capabilities in-house. So you should see that those level of investments come down in subsequent quarters. So feeling great about where we stand for the year and feeling great about the team members that we’ve brought on over the last couple of quarters.

Operator: There are no further questions at this time. Steve Moster, I turn the call back over to you.

Steve Moster: Okay. Well, thanks everybody for joining us. I apologize for some of the technical challenges that we have here through the call. But as always, we look forward to talking to you for the next quarter results. Thanks so much.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. You may now disconnect.

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