REG - Hostelworld Grp PLC - Acquisition

HostelworldAnnouncement

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RNS Number : 1086E  Hostelworld Group PLC  21 October 2025

LEI:213800OC94PF2D675H41

THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONTAINS INSIDE INFORMATION

Hostelworld Group plc ("Hostelworld" or the "Group")

Acquisition of OccasionGenius

Hostelworld enhances its social travel platform offering through the
acquisition of OccasionGenius

Hostelworld is pleased to announce that it has acquired the entire issued
share capital of OccasionGenius Inc. ("OccasionGenius"), a US-based B2B event
discovery platform, for a total cash consideration of $12.0 million.

OccasionGenius empowers businesses to inspire their audiences with a global
event dataset delivered via API, comprising a rich, city-by-city catalogue of
local 'Things to Do' and a unique global dataset of 'travel worthy' events
that inspire travellers to book trips.

The company addresses the critical need for accurate, large-scale event
information. Its unique, technology-based aggregation capabilities,
supplemented with a human-curated approach, ensure details such as venues,
dates, and times are reliable. This factual data is then enriched with
inspirational descriptions, rights-cleared imagery, and extensive event
metadata to create a comprehensive, marketing-ready content asset for their
blue-chip clients.

Strategic Rationale for the Acquisition

The acquisition represents a natural progression of our growth strategy
outlined at the Capital Markets Day in April 2025. It builds on the success of
our social strategy, reinforcing our ambition to create the world's leading
social travel platform. The acquisition accelerates the development of our
events capability, giving us immediate access to structured, global event
data; content that would otherwise take years to build organically. By
integrating this at scale, we expand from accommodation into events,
strengthen community connection, and advance our broader social monetisation
strategy.

The strategic rationale is clear, compelling, and based on three key pillars:

·      Enhances our Social Travel Platform: By integrating a rich
catalogue of local events, we give travellers more reasons to connect and
explore together, creating an unrivalled platform to find not only a place to
stay and people to meet, but also unforgettable things to do.

·      Accelerates our Growth and Monetisation: By showcasing major
'travel worthy' events, we can inspire new trips entirely, capturing
travellers at the very beginning of their planning journey and driving growth
in social members and bookings.

·      Creates a Unique Proprietary Data Asset: By combining our Social
Graph and bookings data with this new layer of global event data, we are
building a powerful, long-term strategic asset that will provide unique
insights into traveller behaviour and drive future growth.

Once fully integrated, the new content will enhance the breadth and relevance
of our platform, driving increased growth in Social members, bookings and
Social Network revenues that collectively strengthen financial performance.

Occasion Genius will be acquired for a total cash consideration of $12.0m on a
cash-free, debt-free basis (subject to customary closing adjustments). The
consideration will be fully funded by a new €10.3m, 3-year term loan
facility with Allied Irish Bank which will have an interest rate payable of
2.0% over EURIBOR. Hostelworld's leverage position remains comfortably below
our target of 1.0x.

OccasionGenius is growing rapidly with forecasted annualised recurring revenue
of €1.5m, by year end. Hostelworld's financial guidance for FY 2025 remains
unchanged. The acquisition is aligned with our objectives as set out at our
Capital Markets Day in April 2025.

Gary Morrison, Group Chief Executive Officer, commented:

"The acquisition of OccasionGenius is a significant development which
positions Hostelworld as the first social travel platform with an integrated
offering of social networking, event discovery and accommodation. This
acquisition allows us to immediately supercharge our platform with a wealth of
content that would take us years to build organically and enhances value
creation opportunities for our shareholders."

 

MAR information

This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of
both the EU and UK versions of the Market Abuse Regulation (EU 596/2014)
("MAR"), which, in the case of the UK, is part of UK law by virtue of the
European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. For the purposes of MAR and Article 2 of
Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2016/1055 (in the case of the UK, as
incorporated into UK law), this announcement is being made on behalf of the
Company by Caroline Sherry, Chief Financial Officer.

For further information please contact:

Hostelworld Group plc
 
                     Corporate@hostelworld.com

Gary Morrison, Chief Executive Officer

Caroline Sherry, Chief Financial Officer

David Brady, Head of Commercial Finance

 

Sodali &
Co.
   hostelworld@sodali.com

Eavan Gannon / Oliver Banks
      Tel: +44 (0) 20 7250 1446

 

About Hostelworld Group

Hostelworld Group PLC is a ground‐breaking social network powered Online
Travel Agent ("OTA") focused on the hostelling category, with a clear mission
to help travellers find people to hang out with. Our mission statement is
founded on the insight that most travellers go hostelling to meet other
people, which we facilitate through a series of social features on our
platform that connect our travellers in hostels and cities based on their
booking data. The strategy has been extraordinarily successful, generating
significant word of mouth recommendations from our customers and strong
endorsements from our hostel partners.

Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Ireland, Hostelworld is a well‐known
trusted brand with almost 270 employees, hostel partners in over 180
countries, and a long‐standing commitment to building a better world. To
that end, our focus over the last few years has been on improving the
sustainability of the hostelling industry. In particular, over the last two
years we have commissioned independent research to validate the category's
sustainability credentials and recently introduced a hostel specific
sustainability framework which encourages our hostel partners to move to even
more sustainable operations and also provides the data points for our
customers to make more informed decisions about where they stay. In addition,
our customers are now able to offset their trip's carbon emissions should they
wish to do so, and we have maintained our 'Taking Climate Action' label
awarded by South Pole.

Disclaimer

This announcement contains forward-looking statements. These statements relate
to the future prospects, developments and business strategies of Hostelworld.
Forward-looking statements are identified by the use of such terms as
"believe", "could", "envisage", "estimate", "potential", "intend", "may",
"plan", "will" or variations or similar expressions, or the negative thereof.
Any forward-looking statements contained in this announcement are based on
current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could
cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by
those statements. If one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize,
or if underlying assumptions prove incorrect, Hostelworld's actual results may
vary materially from those expected, estimated or projected. Any
forward-looking statements speak only as at the date of this announcement.
Except as required by law, Hostelworld undertakes no obligation to publicly
release any update or revisions to any forward-looking statements contained in
this announcement to reflect any change in events, conditions or circumstances
on which any such statements are based after the time they are made.

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