Safestay PLC on Monday reported a profit for 2021 as the firm swung back in to the black following an easing of Covid-related travel restrictions.

Further, the city centre hostels operator has seen bookings in 2022 ahead of internal expectations.

Shares in Safestay advanced 7.1% in London on Monday morning to 14.99 pence each.

In 2021, it improved to a pretax profit of £692,000 from a loss of £9.9 million in 2020.

Revenue rose to £6.4 million from £4.8 million.

‘We are seeing the steady recovery of our market with young travellers and schools once again visiting Europe’s major cities. From our perspective, we always believed this would happen and that our hostels would again demonstrate their appeal to our target customers,’ Chair Larry Lipman said.

‘Occupancy is increasing at an encouraging pace and at strong average bed rates with bookings for the summer ahead of our internal budget plans. We expect momentum to increase as travel returns to normal conditions.’

It noted, from the beginning of April and by the end of July, all 16 of its hostels had re-opened as restrictions lifted, Safestay said the hostels overall ‘showed improved trading’ with demand initially seen from domestic customers but gradually beginning to welcome back international visitors.

The average bed rate in 2021 improved to £19.7 from £18.3. Its occupancy, however, slipped to 35.4% from 37.9%.

For 2022, it said the firm has had a ‘steady start’ over the first 5 months of the year with revenue running at around 81% of pre-pandemic levels, in-line with management’s expectations.

‘Bookings for the summer period are ahead of our internal budgets and we are looking forward to delivering a much-improved summer trading period,’ it added.

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