ETC.L Regulatory News (ETC)

9 Feb 2009 09:01



For Immediate Release  9 February 2009

ET-CHINA.COM INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS LIMITED

("the Group" or "the Company")

Trading Update

Substantial increase in trading over 'Chinese New Year' 

Et-china.com International Holdings Limited, the leading travel services group in the fast growing region of South China, announces an update on its trading performance for 7 day Chinese New Year period.

The Group achieved a substantial increase in sales during the period within a generally improving Chinese travel market. GZL, the tour operating business, produced a particularly good performance with revenue of RMB166.4m during the 7 day golden week, a 49% increase over the comparable holiday period of 2008 and equal to nearly 10% of GZL's total revenue for the whole of the last year.

GZL

GZL, which is one of the largest travel package holiday providers in South China providing tour packages through 160 high street stores as well as a twenty four hour call centre, served 86,990 (of which 62,467 were travellers originated from GZL) package tour customers over the 7 day holiday, a 41% increase from 2008 with a comparable increase in the number of tours organised by GZL. Of the originated tour increase, the number of domestic tour customers grew significantly by some 65% to 41,417 and the number of outbound travellers increased by 10% to 21,050. The Board believes that these increases achieved reflect the continued trend for travel amongst the Chinese population, as well as the absence of the comparable period's adverse weather conditions which severely impacted the New Year travel period in 2008.

ETC

In the same period, the Et-china Limited subsidiary ("ETC"), which is primarily focused on the frequent independent traveller and corporate account markets, performed strongly over the period. Total numbers of tickets issued by ETC increased by 115% during the month leading to the Chinese New Year, which resulted in a 72% increase in total transaction value to RMB15.6m.

More significantly, ETC achieved a tenfold increase in the number of tickets issued via the internet which lead to an eightfold increase in revenues to RMB206,231 . This increase is mainly down to management's strategy to increase spend on online marketing and is particularly pleasing as it illustrates the exponential growth in the number of FIT travellers purchasing tickets over the internet endorsing ETC's online business model.

Matthew Ng, President and Chief Executive Officer, commented:

"Et-china's trading performance over the holiday period has been very encouraging. Our tour operating business is performing well, achieving almost 10% of last year's total revenues over the week long holiday period. We are also heartened by the strong performance from ETC as it endorses our strategy of forming strategic alliances to deliver sales over the internet."

"While much has been written about the slowdown in the Chinese economy, we are seeing buoyant levels of activity. In Southern China, we are experiencing more people travelling and an increase in their levels of spending which is a clear sign that they feel confident about the economy going forward."

"It has been a very encouraging start to the year and we look forward to consolidating our position as the leading travel services group in Southern China."

- Ends -

Contact details for enquiries:

Et-china.com International Holdings Limited 0207 067 0700

Matthew Ng

Seymour Pierce, Nominated Adviser and Broker 0207 107 8000

Mark Percy

Catherine Leftley

Weber Shandwick Financial 0207 067 0700

Terry Garrett

Stephanie Badjonat

John Moriarty