TBO Tek Delivers Growth Despite Toughest Quarter in Two Years as Middle East Disruptions Hit Global Travel

Published at : Sep 11, 2026 07:31 AM (IST)

Total Views : 12

TBO Tek Delivers Growth Despite Toughest Quarter in Two Years as Middle East Disruptions Hit Global Travel

The Print Times

TBO, is a global partner in simplifying travel solutions for businesses worldwide. Since its establishment in 2006, TBO has evolved from a single-product air ticketing company into a leading global travel distribution platform. TBO proprietary technology seamlessly connects travel buyers and suppliers, ensuring streamlined transactions across the diverse landscape of global travel.

TBO Tek Limited reported growth in both its top line and bottom line during what Co-Founder and Joint Managing Director Gaurav Bhatnagar described as the company’s toughest quarter in the last two years, as increasing disturbances in the Middle East caused severe disruption to global travel.

Speaking during the Q1 FY27 earnings conference call on July 30, 2026, Bhatnagar said the impact of the disruption extended well beyond the Middle East, with markets such as India and Europe affected as travel between East and West and West and East was disrupted due to heavy reliance on Middle East carriers. Airfares also remained very high.

Despite these challenges, TBO Tek delivered growth in both its top line and bottom line, which the company attributed partly to the diversity of its source markets. According to Bhatnagar, the absence of heavy dependence on any single country or region helped cushion the impact of the disruption during the quarter.

The company’s investments in market development in Europe also helped support performance. Even though travel in Europe was generally impacted during the quarter, TBO Tek delivered 24% year-on-year growth in Europe.

Bhatnagar also highlighted the increasing importance of North America, particularly following the acquisition of Classic Vacations. North America is now approaching a quarter of the company’s hotel GTV, which management believes provides an opportunity to build further growth in the region. The company expects the North America-Europe corridor to remain more resilient compared with other travel corridors under the prevailing conditions.

Despite the severe crisis in the Middle East, the region delivered broadly stable performance, with 1% growth in constant currency. Bhatnagar said the performance reflected the efforts of the company's team in managing the challenging environment.

According to the company, investments made in Europe and the acquisition of Classic Vacations proved timely, helping cushion potential degrowth during the quarter. The European business provided growth despite the difficult environment, while the Classic Vacations acquisition provided an entry into a more resilient North America-Europe travel corridor.

Another key development during the quarter was the emergence of operating leverage. Bhatnagar said the company’s bottom-line EBITDA margins grew significantly faster than its gross profit or revenue margins.

The company had previously indicated that operating leverage would become visible as the business scaled. Although it had expected to see this in the fourth quarter, the outbreak of war affected that period. The first quarter, however, provided a clear demonstration of operating leverage, with margins expanding even on moderate top-line growth amid the challenging travel environment.

TBO Tek expects that as top-line growth normalizes once travel conditions return to normal, bottom-line growth could accelerate further.

The company has also started reporting its performance in constant currency in addition to Indian rupee terms. Bhatnagar said this followed feedback from investors and was particularly relevant during the quarter because of the significant depreciation of the rupee on a year-on-year basis.

There was an approximately 11% gap in hotel GTV when measured in constant currency compared with Indian rupee terms, resulting in significantly different growth rates depending on the reporting basis. The company said the previous quarter had seen only around a 3% gap between constant-currency and INR hotel GTV, which was not considered significant enough to report separately.

Bhatnagar said the company has started reporting constant-currency numbers in the interest of transparency, particularly given the unusually steep year-on-year currency movement during the quarter.
 

Published at : Sep 11, 2026 07:31 AM (IST)

Total Views : 12