Tuniu (NASDAQ:TOUR) held its second-quarter earnings conference call on Tuesday. Below is the complete transcript from the call.

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Summary

TOUR reported a year-over-year revenue increase of 3% for Q2 2026, amounting to 138.9 million RMB, with packaged tours showing a 7% increase.

The company maintained non-GAAP profitability for the sixth consecutive quarter, despite challenges in outbound travel markets.

Strategic initiatives included expanding product offerings, such as small group and premium private tours, and enhancing marketing through online seminars and live-streaming shows.

Technological advancements were made with AI integration in workflows and customer service, improving efficiency and personalizing travel planning.

Future guidance projects a revenue increase of 0% to 5% for Q3 2026, reflecting cautious optimism amidst ongoing market uncertainties.

Full Transcript

OPERATOR

Hello, and thank you for standing by for TOUR's 2026 second quarter earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After management's prepared remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the meeting over to your host for today's conference call, Director of Investor Relations, Mary.

Mary, Director of Investor Relations

Thank you, and welcome to our 2026 second quarter earnings conference call. Joining me on the call today are Donald Yu, TOUR's Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and An Xiangcheng, TOUR's Financial Controller. For today's agenda, management will discuss business updates, operation highlights, and financial performance for the second quarter of 2026. Before we continue, I refer you to our Safe Harbor statement in the earnings press release, which applies to this call as we will make forward-looking statements.

Also, this call includes discussions of certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our earnings release, which contains a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. Finally, please note that unless otherwise stated, all figures mentioned during this conference call are in RMB. I would now like to turn the call over to our Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Donald Yu.

Donald Yu, Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Mary. Good day, everyone. Welcome to our second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Supported by favorable policies such as the introduction of spring breaks, the domestic travel market maintained steady growth in the second quarter. Meanwhile, the overall travel market faced some uncertainties, with certain outbound destinations experiencing headwinds. Despite these challenges, we maintained revenue growth in the second quarter and achieved non-GAAP profitability for the sixth consecutive quarter.

During the quarter, we continued to execute our diversified product and sales channels strategy. Guided by customer needs, we further enriched our product offerings across categories, destinations, and price tiers. For our sales channels, we continued to work with a broad range of partners to better reach different customer segments. Let me walk you through some of our key initiatives in more detail. On the product side, as customers increasingly seek more personalized tours and flexible travel options, we have continued to expand and refine our product portfolio.

First, we further expanded our product offerings to include more small group tours, private tours, customized tours, self-driving tours, and other travel-related products. Small group tours have been well received by younger travelers for their flexibility and strong value proposition, while private tours have gained popularity among family travelers for their more personalized and private travel experience. To better serve the needs of self-guided travelers, we also expanded our hotel-centric service, self-guided tour products, and broadened our portfolio of other travel-related products including hotels, car rentals, and destination experiences.

Second, in addition to enhancing our new tour products for the mass market and our value-oriented New Select series, we introduced a number of premium private tour products during the quarter to meet demand from customers seeking higher-quality travel experiences. These products feature premium accommodations, dedicated car services, and other upgraded travel experiences. For example, our premium private package to Singapore for the summer season, launched in late June, has been well received by family travelers, with sales volume exceeding 10 million RMB to date.

We also continued to expand our product offerings for different customer segments. For family-oriented customers, we launched a range of travel products during the spring break season centered on Eastern China. For senior travelers, we introduced longer-duration offline tours of more than 15 days as well as off-peak travel products scheduled outside major holiday periods. By better aligning our products with the preferences of different customer segments, these offerings have delivered higher conversion and retention rates.

On the sales side, we adopted more targeted marketing initiatives. We launched a series of online seminars, inviting customers interested in specific products or destinations to learn more through detailed presentations and interactive activities, helping deepen customer engagement and interest. We also introduced dedicated live-streaming shows focused on specific products and destinations, providing viewers with more in-depth and specialized content.

These targeted live-streaming shows have generally delivered higher conversion rates. In addition to more targeted product offerings and marketing initiatives, we continued to expand our partnerships across sales channels. In live streaming, we further extended our presence to multiple major platforms while also deepening cooperation with MCN agencies. Leveraging our comprehensive portfolio of high-quality leisure travel products and well-established fulfillment capabilities, together with the extensive viewer reach of our MCN partners, we were able to increase sales scale and expand our customer base.

In the second quarter, both payment and verification volume generated through our live-streaming channels continued to record double-digit year-over-year growth. Transaction volume from our offline stores also continued to record double-digit year-over-year growth. As of today, we operate approximately 500 offline stores. Our offline store network has contributed to sales growth and expanded the reach of our service network, while we continue to provide stores with tailored products that help them better sell and attract local customers.

During the second quarter, demand for customized tour travel solutions from corporate clients increased. Leveraging our industry experience and high-quality products and services, we worked with a number of well-known enterprises to plan and deliver corporate travel tours, including team-building activities and incentive travel. From a technology perspective, we have integrated AI into a broader range of workflows, such as building knowledge bases, creating promotional materials, and assisting with other processing.

AI tools have become valuable assistants to many employees, helping them work more efficiently while reducing operating costs. On the customer side, we upgraded our travel AI agent, AI Assistant Xiaonio, with integrated booking and order processing capabilities. Customers can now complete the entire booking process for standalone travel products, including flights, hotels, and attraction tickets, through AI from initial inquiry to final booking. In addition, Jianyu can search, plan, and compare itineraries based on different travel scenarios, such as business trips or vacations, as well as customers' individual preferences, delivering a more personalized travel planning experience. As we enter the summer travel season, we are well positioned to support the increased demand during the peak travel period. While there may still be some uncertainties in the second half of the year, we are confident in the growth of travel demand and the theme of both the travel industry and our business. We remain committed to providing customers with high-quality products and services. I'll now turn the call over to An Xiangcheng, our Financial Controller, for the financial highlights.

An Xiangcheng, Financial Controller

Thank you, Donald. Hello everyone. Now I will walk you through our second quarter of 2026 financial results in greater detail. Please note that all monetary amounts are in RMB unless otherwise stated. You can find the U.S. dollar equivalent of the numbers in our earnings release. For the second quarter of 2026, net revenues were 138.9 million, representing a year-over-year increase of 3% from the corresponding period in 2025. Revenues from packaged tours were up 7% year over year to 121.1 million and accounted for 87% of our total net revenues for the quarter.

The increase was primarily due to the growth of online tours. Other revenues were down 17% year over year to 17.8 million and accounted for 13% of our total net revenues. The decrease was primarily due to the decrease in the fees for advertising services provided to tourism boards and bureaus. Gross profit for the second quarter of 2026 was 76.4 million, down 11% year over year. Operating expenses for the second quarter of 2026 were 82.5 million, up 5% year over year.

Research and product development expenses for the second quarter of 2026 were 13.8 million, down 16% year over year. The decrease was primarily due to decreasing research and product development personnel-related expenses. Sales and marketing expenses for the second quarter of 2026 were 54.7 million, up 22% year over year. The increase was primarily due to the increase in promotion expenses. General and administrative expenses for the second quarter of 2026 were 14.1 million, down 20% year over year.

The decrease was primarily due to the decrease in general and administrative personnel-related expenses. Net income attributable to ordinary shareholders of TOUR was 0.7 million in the second quarter of 2026. Non-GAAP net income attributable to TOUR shareholders, which excluded share-based compensation expenses and amortization of acquired intangible assets, was 2.2 million in the second quarter of 2026. As of June 30, 2026, the company had cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash, short-term investments, and long-term deposits of 1 billion.

Cash flow generated from operations for the second quarter of 2026 was 46.9 million. Capital expenditures for the second quarter of 2026 were 1.4 million. For the third quarter of 2026, the company expects to generate 202.1 million to 212.2 million of net revenues, which represents a 0% to 5% increase year over year. Please note that these forecasts reflect the company's current and preliminary view on the industry and its operations, which is subject to change.

Thank you for listening. We are now ready for your questions. Operator.

OPERATOR

The question-and-answer session of this conference call will start in a moment. In order to be fair to all callers who wish to ask questions, we will take one question at a time from each caller. If you have more than one question, please request to join the question queue again after your first question has been addressed. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys.

If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Sarah Zhao, a private investor. Please go ahead.

Sarah Zhao, Private Investor

Hi, management. Thank you for the opportunity. Two questions here. First, could you please share the reasons for the decrease in net profit in the second quarter? Second, could you provide more details about travel bookings in the summer and also the outlook for the profitability of the quarter? Thank you.

Donald Yu, Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you for the questions. In the second quarter, the domestic travel market continued to grow steadily, whereas the outbound travel market met some headwinds at certain destinations. The headwinds directly impacted leisure travel to certain destinations. For example, the Middle East and Africa recorded over 20% year-over-year decrease of transaction volume during the quarter. As a result, outbound tours accounted for about 30% of our total GMV for the second quarter, compared to over one-third in the same period last year.

Some promotional activities from certain destinations were suspended in the second quarter. Our other revenues decreased about 70% year over year mainly due to reduction in fees for advertising services we provided. In the domestic market, we see more rapid growth in self-guided tour products such as our Hotel plus X products. These products are usually less profitable than organized tours. For the summer occasion, the domestic travel market maintains steady growth momentum.

High-quality organized tour products such as small group tours and private tours are welcomed by customers. Some of our MCN partners select only small group tour products to recommend to their viewers. The outbound market continues to face some uncertainties, which drag down the growth of outbound travel. Destinations such as the Middle East still recorded negative growth in July, but other destinations such as Singapore, Malaysia, and the Americas grew healthily during the summer.

Many people choose off-peak travels this year. With more holidays introduced, we are seeing transaction volume become more evenly spread across the months. For example, since the coming Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holiday are very close to each other, many people plan to take a longer vacation connecting the two holidays. Therefore, we are seeing bookings in the last week of September surging. As of today, travels to long-haul outbound destinations such as the Americas and Oceania during that week have already surpassed the same period last year.

Lastly, although we don't share specific profit outlook, we are trying to achieve profitability for another quarter. Thank you.

OPERATOR

Thank you. Did that answer your questions, Sarah? Thank you again. If you have a question, please press star then one. We are now approaching the end of the conference call. I will now turn the call over to TOUR's Director of Investor Relations, Mary, for closing remarks.

Mary, Director of Investor Relations

Once again, thank you for joining us today. Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions. Thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to speaking with you in the coming months.

OPERATOR

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the presentation. You may now disconnect. Good day.

Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company's SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants' and analysts' statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.