Ambassadors Group Inc. Q2 2008 Earnings Call Transcript

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2008-08-25 13:40:23.0

Tags: Ambassadors Group Inc.

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of Greg McKinley from Dougherty. Please proceed.

Greg McKinley - Dougherty

Thank you. Guys, I'm wondering, if you could talk with us a little bit about your anticipated program delivery costs as you head into the '09 travel season. You said, you've just begun marketing that travel season. Can you talk with us a little bit about the price increases that you're anticipating? And I'm just looking at obviously increased weakness of the dollar versus the euro year-over-year from -- heading into this next year, versus where you were a year ago as you prepared for the '08 season. So, talk to us a little about costs and how you feel you need to price the programs accordingly, please.

Chadwick Byrd

Thank you, Greg. This is Chadwick. Good question on 2009 program pricing. As you know, we are about to start marketing our programs for 2009, so we have set those prices in general that are going up, we believe, around 7%. We think that we're happy with how we've been able to maintain costs. We do have a weaker U.S. dollar really across the board. Only the pound is probably the only one that has come in year-over-year. The euro is 9% off where we were last year, so we are facing those challenges. We are also facing challenges with airline, international airline costs, fuel surcharges, hotel cost internationally has not come down. In the past, we've got a great travel operations group that has been negotiating those contracts for quite some time. So, we believe we'll be able to maintain margin, but it's going to be a challenge for 2009.

Jeff Thomas

Hi, Greg, let me just add that we also look at the CPI and for the past several years, as you know, the CPI has been a lower number, I think pretty much below 3%. And our price increases have been much more significant for the past several years, particularly last year. And I think this fall as Chadwick mentioned we are looking at 6% or 7% price increases year-over-year. The CPI is tracking around 5%. So, this is actually the first year in several years where we've been actually pretty close to what consumers might be expecting in other areas of their lives.

Greg McKinley - Dougherty

Okay. And then, as a reminder, what was your price increase for the '08 programs versus '07?

 

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