Earnings call transcript: Lindblad Expeditions beats Q2 2025 forecasts, stock surges

Lindblad Expeditions Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:LIND), a $642 million market cap adventure travel company, reported better-than-expected earnings for the second quarter of 2025, posting an earnings per share (EPS) of -$0.18 against a forecast of -$0.28, a positive surprise of 35.71%. Revenue also exceeded expectations, reaching $167.9 million, surpassing the forecasted $159.18 million. Following the announcement, Lindblad’s stock saw a significant premarket increase of 6.82%, reflecting investor optimism. According to InvestingPro analysis, the company is currently trading near its Fair Value, with two analysts recently revising their earnings expectations upward for the upcoming period.

Key Takeaways

• Lindblad’s Q2 2025 EPS of -$0.18 beat the forecast by 35.71%.
• Revenue rose to $167.9 million, a 23% year-over-year increase.
• Stock surged 6.82% in premarket trading following earnings release.
• Occupancy rates improved from 78% to 86%.
• The company launched new products, including a European river cruise program.

Company Performance

Lindblad Expeditions demonstrated strong performance in Q2 2025, with total revenues increasing by 23% year-over-year. The company benefited from heightened demand for adventure and expedition travel, which was reflected in the increased occupancy rate of 86%, up from 78% last year. This growth aligns with broader industry trends favoring sustainable and immersive travel experiences.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $167.9 million, up 23% year-over-year
• Earnings per share: -$0.18, beating the forecast of -$0.28
• Adjusted EBITDA: $24.8 million, a 139% increase
• Net yield per available guest night: $1,241, up 13%

Earnings vs. Forecast

Lindblad’s Q2 2025 earnings per share of -$0.18 exceeded analysts’ expectations of -$0.28, marking a significant positive surprise of 35.71%. Revenue also surpassed forecasts by 5.48%, reaching $167.9 million. This performance indicates effective execution of strategic initiatives aimed at increasing occupancy and optimizing cost structures.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, Lindblad’s stock experienced a notable premarket increase of 6.82%, with shares trading at $12.53. This surge reflects investor confidence in the company’s ability to exceed expectations and capitalize on market opportunities. The stock’s performance is particularly impressive given its 52-week range, with a high of $14.34 and a low of $6.76.

Outlook & Guidance

Lindblad provided full-year revenue guidance of $725-$750 million and EBITDA guidance of $108-$115 million. The company expects a net yield per available guest night to increase by 9-11%, driven by international expansion and product innovation. Strategic initiatives, such as the launch of a European river cruise program and new partnerships, are expected to fuel future growth.

Executive Commentary

CEO Natalia Leahy highlighted the company’s momentum: "We are seeing a clear momentum from the strategic initiatives we’ve implemented to increase occupancy and innovate across our cost structure." Financial Executive Rick Goldberg emphasized the investment focus: "2025 is an investment year for our organization."

Risks and Challenges

• Economic downturns could affect travel demand.
• Increased competition in the adventure travel market.
• Potential geopolitical tensions impacting international operations.
• Currency fluctuations affecting international revenue.
• Dependence on strategic partnerships for growth.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the demographics of the Disney partnership and potential vessel acquisition strategies. Executives also discussed investments in sales and marketing, as well as plans for the second half of 2025. These discussions highlighted Lindblad’s focus on strategic growth and market positioning.

Full transcript - Lindblad Expeditions Holdings Inc (LIND) Q2 2025:

Regina, Conference Operator: Hello, and thank you for standing by. My name is Regina, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Lindblad Expeditions Second Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question and answer the there be question I would now like to turn the conference over and to Rick Goldberg.

Please go ahead.

Rick Goldberg, Financial Executive, Lindblad Expeditions: Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Lindblad’s second quarter twenty twenty five earnings call. With me on today’s call is Natalia Leahy, our Chief Executive Officer. Natalia will begin with some opening comments, and I’ll follow with details on our Q2 financial results and updated expectations for the full year before we open the call for Q and A. As always, you can find our latest earnings release in the Investor Relations section of our website.

But before we get to all of that, I’d like to remind everyone that the company’s comments today may include forward looking statements. Those expectations are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results and performance to be materially different from these expectations. The company cannot guarantee the accuracy of any forecast or estimates, and we undertake no obligation to update any such forward looking statements. If you would like more information on the risks involved in forward looking statements, please see the company’s SEC filings. In addition, our comments may reference non GAAP financial measures.

A reconciliation of the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures and other associated disclosures are contained in the company’s earnings release. With that out of the way, I’ll turn the call over to Natalia.

Natalia Leahy, Chief Executive Officer, Lindblad Expeditions: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to review Lindblad Expedition’s second quarter results. I will start by saying how incredibly proud I am of our team and a very strong performance we delivered this quarter. We’re seeing a clear momentum from the strategic initiatives we’ve implemented to increase occupancy and innovate across our cost structure. While we are focused on value creation opportunities ahead, the meaningful progress we’ve made with the team in a relatively short period gives me and all of ours great confidence in the path we are on. Before diving into the quarterly results, I’d like to take a step back and highlight some key milestones from the past six months that have positioned us for continued success.

First, we introduced more strategic revenue management capabilities through thoughtful pricing architecture aligned with strategic and systemic commercial calendar. Second, we’re executing impactful strategic and tactical initiatives with our Disney partners, allowing us access to new channels and audiences, which are already yielding positive outcomes. Third, we’ve implemented robust cost innovation process across the business. To support these priorities, we adopted an organizational structure better aligned with our long term goals and made several key additions to our leadership team, bringing deep and diverse expertise. Chris DeSouza joined us as chief revenue management officer, bringing extensive experience across revenue management sales and marketing in the cruise industry and across multiple brands.

Rare admiral Keith Taylor, US Coast Guard retired, now serving as chief maritime officer. He brings more than forty years of experience in the Coast Guard maritime and cruise industry and is already delivering meaningful results in maintenance optimization and dry dock planning. Janelle Findley was appointed senior vice president of planning and operations. With her strong operational and financial background, she’s leading deployment optimization and robust cost innovation efforts. Sean Choksi came aboard as senior vice president of strategy and corporate development where he will be advancing our programmatic m and a strategy.

Sean brings valuable experience from both private equity and industry. These leaders together with our very talented existing team reinforce a culture rooted in purpose and performance giving us full confidence in our ability to capitalize on opportunities that lie ahead. Turning to our second quarter performance, I am pleased to report another outstanding quarter. Revenue increased by 23%, including 19% increase in our core Lindblad expedition segment and 41 increase in our land segment. Occupancy rose to 86%, an 11 gain despite a 5% capacity increase.

Net yields grew 14% to $1,241, a historic high for second quarter. Adjusted EBITDA increased 149% with margins expanding 720 basis points to 14.8%. Our bookings remain strong and tracking ahead of last year both in 2025 and 2026 across both segments, setting us up well for continued success throughout the year and beyond and reflecting the strength of our brand, differentiated experiences, and exceptional service our guests enjoy. Let me now walk you through the progress we’ve made across our three long term strategic pillars. Number one, maximizing revenue generation through higher occupancy pricing and deployment optimization.

Number two, optimizing financial performance through cost innovations and fixed assets optimization. Number three, exploring and capitalizing on accretive growth opportunities, including additions to our brand portfolio. Let me begin with our first pillar which focuses on maximizing revenue generation. We are optimizing deployment by focusing on most profitable destinations across both expedition and land segments and reducing non revenue days. As a result, we have added four voyages in 2026, up from three we announced last quarter.

And thanks to improved dry dock and transition voyage planning, we’ve reduced nonrevenue days by 38% between 2025 and 2027. Our onboard sales program pilots that I mentioned during last call will be fully rolled out by the August. This initiative allows guests to book their next journey while still immersed in their current expedition, and it’s already driving meaningful results in repeat bookings and expanding booking curves. Our partnership with Disney continues to build momentum. Following last quarter’s engagement with Disney’s earmarked travel advisors, we’ve conducted multiple follow-up webinars and presentations.

As a result, bookings from this group have increased 45%. Additionally, Disney Vacation Club members can now redeem points for expedition cruises, introducing our brand to more than 250,000 members globally. This is a major milestone and a significant cross lever. National geographic refrain travel campaign was launched across digital and social media resulting in search volumes increased by 122%, and we plan to further expand this activation. We also recently relaunched our youth travel program under the new name explorers in training, reinforcing our commitment to multigenerational travel.

We believe that offering family friendly options for our most popular itineraries presents a sizable growth opportunity. I had the pleasure of attending a meaningful naming ceremony of our National Geographic Delfina and National Geographic Gemini in the Galapagos, celebrating nearly sixty years of partnership with the local community. This event attracted extensive media coverage and amplified our brand presence in one of our top destinations. Outbound sales also remain a key priority. We nearly doubled quarter two outbound sales delivering strong return on investments.

Thanks to our dedicated focus. Charters also remain a strategic focus. Our small ships provide ideal settings for affinity groups, high net worth individuals, and institutional clients. As a result, charters now make up a double digit percentage of twenty twenty six bookings. Last not least, in our land segment, are leveraging innovation to align with key consumer trends that drive growth across our portfolio.

For instance, Natural Habitat has expanded its women’s journeys program to tap into the rising demand for female focused group travel. Similarly, Devine has enhanced its chef on wheels offering, premium chef led cycling tours that combine two passions shared by many, food and cycling. Each tour offers stylish immersive lodgings that complements the region’s character and cuisine. This premium priced experience driven products continue to demonstrate exceptional demand. Moving to our second strategic pillar which focuses on operational excellence and productivity improvements.

We now have more than 20 cost innovation initiatives underway targeting fourth fourth cost optimization, procurement, and crew planning. As mentioned earlier, our improved drydock planning has already added four additional voyages to 2026, enhancing fixed asset utilization and productivity. Our first strategic pillar centers on accretive growth initiatives. Our newly launched European river cruise program has been very well received with twenty twenty six departures already over 50% booked and some voyages sold out. I’m pleased to announce our acquisition of four safari camps in East Africa, which enable vertical integration in our key region for natural habitat adventures and deepen our footprint in Africa.

Sustainability remains central to our mission, and we will continue to share meaningful highlights in this area. We are currently preparing our first ever ESG report to be released next quarter, highlighting our environmental and social impact efforts. Natural Habitat expanded on the electrification of its vehicle fleet by introducing the first ever electrical vehicle officially permitted for tourism in Peru. It was a meaningful undertaking to build out on the infrastructure, and it is symbolic example of the company’s commitment to greenhouse gas emissions in each region we operate. Given our strong first half performance and growing momentum, we are rising full year guidance for net yields, revenue and adjusted EBITDA.

Rick will cover more on this topic. We remain focused on operational excellence and sustainable growth that will drive long term shareholders value. In closing, I want to express my sincere appreciation to our incredible Sheeport, Shoresight, and field teams. Their passion, dedication, and commitment to delivering extraordinary guest experiences while upholding the highest standards of responsibility are truly inspiring. As we move forward, we will remain focused on our three strategic pillars to drive meaningful long term value.

With that, I’ll now turn the call over to Rick for a deeper dive into our financial results. Rick?

Rick Goldberg, Financial Executive, Lindblad Expeditions: Thank you, Natalia. I’m pleased to report another strong quarter of performance reflecting our continued progress in driving both occupancy and net yield growth, innovating our cost structure to enhance margins and most importantly staying true to our commitment to delivering an exceptional guest experience. Total company revenues for Q2 twenty twenty five were $167,000,000 an increase of $31,000,000 or 23% versus Q2 twenty twenty four. Lindblad segment revenues were $111,000,000 an increase of $18,000,000 or 19% compared to the prior year. Occupancy increased eight percentage points from 78% to 86% in spite of a 5% increase in available guest nights.

And net yield per available guest night increased 13% to twelve forty one, which is the highest Q2 net yield in company history. Planned Experience segment revenues were $57,000,000 an increase of $13,000,000 or 31% compared to Q2 twenty twenty four driven by increased trips, higher revenue per guest and the inclusion of Weinland Thompson Adventures, an adventure travel group that primarily operates African safaris, which was acquired in July 2024. Q2 twenty twenty five adjusted EBITDA was $24,800,000 an increase of $14,500,000 or 139 percent versus the prior year. This was driven by a $9,800,000 or 150% increase in the Lindblad segment and a $4,700,000 or 121% increase in the Land Experiences segment. This included the impact of $3,400,000 of employee retention tax credits realized in Q2 twenty twenty five.

Excluding these, Q2 adjusted EBITDA increased by $11,100,000 or 106% year over year. Looking closer at the cost side of our business, I’m pleased to report that we delivered significant margin improvement this quarter with adjusted EBITDA margins expanding seven twenty basis points year over year to 14.8%. Operating expenses before stock based compensation, transaction related expenses, depreciation and amortization, interest and taxes increased $17,000,000 or 13.5% versus Q2 twenty twenty four. Specifically, cost of tours increased $8,400,000 or 10.2% driven by operating additional voyages and trips and the inclusion of Lyman Thompson Adventures. Fuel costs were 3.8% of Lindblad segment revenues, which is down two thirty basis points versus a year ago.

Sales and marketing costs increased $8,100,000 or 44.4% primarily due to higher royalties and commission expense and investments in demand generation efforts including building out our sales team. General and administrative costs excluding stock based compensation and transaction related expenses increased $400,000 or 1.8% versus a year ago driven by higher personnel costs partially offset by the employee retention tax credits. Total company net loss available to stockholders improved $16,100,000 year over year to $9,700,000 or $0.18 per diluted share. This result reflects the significant improvements in operations driven by our continued execution on our strategic pillars. Turning to the balance sheet.

We ended the quarter with total cash of $247,300,000 an increase of $31,200,000 versus the 2024. This increase reflects $77,600,000 in cash from operations due primarily to the strong results of the business and increased bookings for future travel. We used $44,700,000 of cash for investing activities, which reflects the acquisition and refurbishment of two Galapagos vessels and higher capital expenditures on our remaining vessels due to the timing of drydocks compared to last year. As Natalia shared earlier and in light of our robust balance sheet, the company is actively exploring accretive growth opportunities, including expanding our fleet and further diversifying our portfolio of land experience brands to capitalize on continued growth in the demand for adventure travel. Turning to full year guidance, I’m pleased to share our updated outlook for 2025.

Our booking curves continue to pace well ahead of prior year levels for both 2025 and 2026. We also recently opened our twenty twenty seven itineraries for sale. And last week, we recorded the highest weekly sales in the history of National Geographic Lindblad Expeditions. This reflects continued strong demand for meaningful immersive travel experiences and the strength of our brand. We are building on this momentum as we prepare to lap Q3 twenty twenty four, which delivered the highest quarterly EBITDA in our history at $46,000,000 with occupancy reaching 82%.

We now expect net yield per available guest night to increase 9% to 11% year over year, up from prior guidance of 7% to 10%. Based on this momentum, we are narrowing our full year revenue guidance from a range of $700,000,000 to $750,000,000 to a range of $725,000,000 to $750,000,000 We are also raising our full year EBITDA guidance to a range of $108,000,000 to $115,000,000 from prior guidance of $100,000,000 to $112,000,000 Our outlook reflects our strong business performance and continued confidence executing against our three strategic pillars. Thank you for your continued interest in Lindblad Expeditions. Natalya and I would now be happy to take your questions.

Regina, Conference Operator: Our first question will come from the line of Steven Wieczynski with Stifel. Please go ahead.

Steven Wieczynski, Analyst, Stifel: Yes. Hey, guys. Good morning. Did I tell you or Rick, obviously very, very strong quarterly results here in the second quarter, so congratulations. If we do some simple math here, you guys have done about $55,000,000 in EBITDA so far in the first half of this year.

Kind of based on your revised EBITDA guidance, it’s going to imply about $57,000,000 ish of EBITDA for the second half of the year at the midpoint. So that’s actually lower than you guys did last year did about $59,000,000 in the second half of the year. So I’m just trying to understand if there’s something we need to think about in terms of cost. I don’t know if it has anything to do with those tax credits or what the difference is in terms of this second half of the year versus last half, just given how strong demand, load factors, all that stuff seems to be at this point.

Rick Goldberg, Financial Executive, Lindblad Expeditions: Thanks so much, Steve. What I’d say is while we remain optimistic about the opportunities in the back half of this year, as we’ve mentioned on previous calls, 2025 is an investment year for our organization, and many of those investments will occur in the 2025.

Steven Wieczynski, Analyst, Stifel: Okay. So just digging that a bit more, guess, we we need to be thinking more about, you know, a little bit higher cost and a little bit less flow through in the second half of the year. That that’s kind of the way we need to be thinking about

Natalia Leahy, Chief Executive Officer, Lindblad Expeditions: That that’s exactly right, Steve. And I think that we mentioned before that we are really focused on investing in the future growth and international expansions. As you know, with Booking Corp, the investments come ahead of booking results. We are very confident and hopefully you are seeing by our progress that we’re going to be in our occupancy levels ahead or at least consistent with historical labels in 2026. And so a lot of these investments are coming in the ’25.

Steven Wieczynski, Analyst, Stifel: Okay. Gotcha. And then second question, another actual guidance question, so I apologize. But I guess what I’m trying to figure out is that normally when you guys and Lindblad gives historically as given guidance back in February, that guidance typically hasn’t changed during the year just given the long booking times and strong book position you guys are normally in at that point. So guess the question is maybe as you look back at the original guidance that you gave back in February versus the updated guidance today, what I don’t want to say what did you guys get wrong.

I’m just trying to figure out what has been kind of the biggest surprise, to kind of get that guidance moved higher in the middle of the year.

Rick Goldberg, Financial Executive, Lindblad Expeditions: So, Steve, what I’d say is when we when Intelie and I first joined back in January, we set out this road map of driving occupancy and net yield growth with a focus on near end bookings for 2025 as well as driving cost innovation. And I think many of those initiatives are ahead of schedule in terms of delivering on their results, which you’ve seen in the performance in Q1 and Q2.

Steven Wieczynski, Analyst, Stifel: Okay. Got you. Thanks guys. Appreciate it.

Regina, Conference Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Eric De LaRay with Craig Hallum. Please go ahead.

Eric De LaRay, Analyst, Craig Hallum: Great. Thanks for taking my questions and congrats on the very strong quarter here. First one for me, just wondering if you could expand a bit more on the increase in sales and marketing this quarter and just kind of how to think about that going forward? You obviously called out some increased investments for the second half. In terms of sales and marketing for this quarter, obviously, there were some commissions related to the higher revenues, but kind of stripping that out, how to think of the sales and marketing build out, or investments that you guys are making now, and over the next few quarters here?

Rick Goldberg, Financial Executive, Lindblad Expeditions: So we’re continuing to invest in new sales channels, our partnership with Disney, international expansion, all with the goal of driving occupancy and net yield growth. I’d also note that there was a step up in royalties associated with our agreement with National Geographic that happened in 2025, and there will be a subsequent step up to the long term run rate in 2026 as that was designed to match the impact of the initiatives, that we have in place with National Geographic and Disney to help us drive sales and marketing.

Eric De LaRay, Analyst, Craig Hallum: All right. That’s very helpful. And then, you mentioned, I believe it was a 38% reduction in, non revenue days from 2025 to 2027, mostly on dry dock optimization. Just wondering if you could expand a bit more on that. How should we think about the timing or the pace of that 38% reduction?

Is that kind of steady from now until 2027? Is there any periods of more or less reduction to call out? Thank you.

Natalia Leahy, Chief Executive Officer, Lindblad Expeditions: Yes. Thank you, Eric. It’s a great question. I think, first of all, we are looking at the deployment kind of January twelve months ahead. So we just recently deployed our ’27 plan, and that plan reflects about 38% reduction in non revenue days compared to our current 25 deployment.

So that’s kind of static year over 25 comparisons, and that was done by optimizing our side of scheduling, transition voyages, and and planning ahead. We also, in addition to that, as I mentioned on the call, found additional optimization opportunities in ’26. So we added now cumulatively four voyages to ’26, increasing revenue days in ’26 as well. And I’m pleased to see that these voyages are booking really, really well already despite the shorter window for deployment.

Eric De LaRay, Analyst, Craig Hallum: All right. I appreciate the clarity. Thanks for taking my questions.

Regina, Conference Operator: Our next question will come from the line of Eric Wold with Texas Capital Securities. Please go ahead.

Eric Wold, Analyst, Texas Capital Securities: Thank you. Good morning. A couple of questions as well. I guess, first off, I know it might be a little bit early. We talked to kind of some of the benefits you’re already seeing from the Disney relationship and kind of working with the Disney sales channel.

Any way to talk about kind of the average demographic profile of the customers you’re seeing booking through, you know, the the sales channel versus, what you may have seen from the hours, you know, profile previously kind of, you know, that customer you’re tapping into now that you may not have been able to tap into before and kind of the difference between the two?

Natalia Leahy, Chief Executive Officer, Lindblad Expeditions: Yeah. I think that this is a great question. Like you said, I think we continue to monitor and we’ll report on how the demographic changes. Our core guest demographic remains the same because these are very curious, sophisticated travelers who are looking for in reaching authentic experiences. And so I think our brand serves so well to the demographic, and the focus of the brand will continue to remain the same.

What we are obviously seeing with tapping into Disney demographic is more increase in multigenerational travel, and our brand is very well positioned to serve multigenerations. Therefore, you just have seen last week, we did a press release on our newly expanded explorers and training program, which is targeted to serve younger travelers and through, again, providing very enriching educational experience. It’s not a kids club. It’s really educational programs that is very much on our brand and have, frankly, been developing over a year. We’re just expanding and naming it.

So what we are seeing is is an increase in multi generation travel for sure in some of our popular destinations, especially during the holidays time like summer in Iceland and Galapagos, we are seeing almost quarter of our travelers 16 year and below. And the product is very well received by families.

Eric Wold, Analyst, Texas Capital Securities: Perfect. Thank you. And then and then the the follow-up question. Yeah. Obviously, there’s some some issues with kind of your kind of overcapacity coming you know, immediately out of the pandemic.

But as as the cruise industry continues to strengthen in in general in recent years and and the hope is that that continues to do so, does that does that diminish your your opportunity to find, used boats in the market to acquire if if you wanted to? And if if that is the case, you know, when do you start needing to consider, ordering new vessels, for future delivery? And and if that and if if you do start looking at new vessels construction, you know, what are you hearing in terms of backlog for what you would want in terms of timing for delivery into the future?

Natalia Leahy, Chief Executive Officer, Lindblad Expeditions: So couple couple answers to your question. One is, yes, we continue to see expanded demand in our product and general experiential travel both across our expedition segment as well as land segment. So we continue to look for growth opportunities. These growth opportunities don’t have to necessarily come through new builds. As you have seen, we just added capacity through adding National Geographic Gemini, National Geographic Dulcina to our Galapagos.

Those are ships we acquired and rebranded and launched and serving our brand now. We’re also expanding quite rapidly through chartering different ships. Last quarter, I talked about launching river cruises charter, which is a long term three year charter that helps us expand into European river cruising. That’s been a very successful expansion, and we’re getting credit to deploy 27 river plants, which will be gain an expansion on 26 capacity. So we’re very excited about that.

We’re looking across multiple different opportunities. Yes. We are considering potentially a new build options as well, but that’s just one of my new options we are considering to expand.

Eric Wold, Analyst, Texas Capital Securities: Thank you, Nisole.

Regina, Conference Operator: And that will conclude our question and answer session. I’ll hand the call back to Rick for any closing remarks.

Rick Goldberg, Financial Executive, Lindblad Expeditions: Just want to thank everybody for your interest in Lindblad Expeditions, and we hope that you have a great week.

Regina, Conference Operator: This concludes today’s call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.

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