‘Bigger fish to fry’: Tourism Holdings might sell off UK division
Monday, 25 August 2025
Campervan giant Tourism Holdings might be putting its UK division up for sale, and hiving off other parts of its business, after a “challenging” year which has left it reporting a net loss of over $25 million.
The NZX-listed company announced a net loss of $25.8m after tax over the year to June 30, a big drop from its $39.4m profit for the previous financial year.
The result included a $54.5m writedown, primarily driven by goodwill impairments and deferred tax assets. Underlying net profit after tax was $28.7m, down 45% on $51.8m the year before.
The company’s revenue result was split, with revenue from its sale of services, largely rentals, up 10% to $486.5m, and its revenue from sale of goods down 6% to $451m.
Tourism Holdings chair Cathy Quinn said it had been a challenging year, defined by uncertainty in the global trading environment, a tough macroeconomic environment and difficult market conditions.
“The FY25 financial result reflects the reality that the retail RV market remained in bottom-of-the-cycle market conditions across the year.”
Tourism Holdings had responded to those challenges effectively and had now passed an inflection point, she said.
“It has plans in place and initiatives under way to improve financial performance and deliver rental revenue growth while continuing to reduce costs and manage debt levels effectively.”
Tourism Holdings chief executive Grant Webster said the global challenges in campervan sales led to surplus rental capacity and lower utilisation than desired across all markets in 2025.
The company had made the changes needed to align its fleet management with market conditions and was turning the corner, he said.
Initiatives the company had under way included strategic reviews of the underperforming divisions including North America, UK and Ireland, and Australian retail sales and Australian manufacturing.
Webster said the company was exploring options for the UK and Ireland division, which included a potential sale.
It was not operating at the scale opportunity the company had thought it would, and had been lumbered with a number of core costs from market legislation out of the UK and Europe, he said.
“That has made it more challenging. With the right focus we could get it right, but given its scale in the broader group we think there are bigger fish to fry in other parts of the world.”
The company would see what the review said about the UK and Ireland division, but it had a big interest in North America which was the “heart of the RV market”, he said.
“Its scale makes it a completely different model so if there is a market where we want to try and get things right it is the North American market.”
Tourism Holdings remained cautious in its outlook for its sales division, with expectations of modest volume growth and broadly stable margins.
Rentals
The company expected continued strong growth in global rental revenue.
That was supported by a forward rental book showing double-digit percentage revenue growth in all markets except the US, where Webster said there were no consistent metrics indicating customer sentiment is turning positive.
The engine of the company’s business model was the rentals business, and international travel remains the core driver for its rental revenue growth, he said.
“There are positive tourism recovery expectations for most of our markets, with industry forecasts for international visitors to surpass 2019 levels by 2027 in New Zealand, 2026 in Australia and 2025 in Canada.
“The outlook for inbound tourism to the US is more uncertain, with ongoing tariff developments creating a volatile demand environment and a strong US dollar making travel more expensive.”
But feedback from European wholesalers was that the US remained an attractive destination, although conversions were lower than prior years, he said.
The company had recently released its growth roadmap, and part of that was its goal to exceed $100m in annualised net profit over the next three to four years.
Webster was confident the company would meet that goal helped by a step up in the cost out plan, lowering debt and leveraging rental division growth, but he said it was too early to release guidance for the 2026 year.
Tourism Holdings recently rejected a takeover bid for the company by Australian industry players as “opportunistic and undervalued”.
Tourism Holdings owns the Maui, Britz, Mighty, Kea Australia and Motek Vehicle Sales brands. It also operates several tourism businesses in New Zealand, including Waitomo Glowworm Caves and Kiwi Experience.
In 2022, it acquired its largest rival Australia’s Apollo Tourism & Leisure, and became the world's largest commercial RV rental operator.