Lindblad Expeditions Holdings Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Desiree and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Lindblad Expeditions third quarter earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question again, press the star one. I would now like to turn the conference over to Rick Goldberg, CFO. You may begin.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Lindblad's third quarter 2025 earnings call. With me on today's call is Natalia Leahy, our chief executive officer. Natalia will begin with some opening comments, and I'll follow with details on our Q3 financial results and updated expectations for the full year before we open the call for Q&A. As always, you can find our latest earnings release in the investor relations section of our website. But before we get to all of that, I'd like to remind everyone that the company's comments today may include forward-looking statements. Those expectations are subject to risks and uncertainty that may cause actual results and performance to be materially different from these expectations. The company cannot guarantee the accuracy of any forecast or estimates, and we undertake no obligation to update any such forward-looking statement. If you would like more information on the risks involved in forward-looking statements, please see the company's SEC filings. In addition, our comments may reference non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures and other associated disclosures are contained in the company's earnings release. With that out of the way, I'll turn the call over to Natalia.

Thank you, Rick, and welcome everyone to our third quarter earnings call. I want to start a bit differently today. Our guests are in the center of everything we do, and I want to share a remarkable highlight from this quarter. We achieved our highest guest net promoter scores ever, both for quarter three and year to date, since we began measuring them. That milestone made me pause and reflect on where we came from. on the history and legacy that make us who we are today and differentiate us and set us up for success going forward. In January 1966, Lars Erik Lindblad led the very first non-scientific expedition to Antarctica, followed a year later by the first citizen voyage to the Galapagos. These were the expeditions that started it all, the beginning of expedition travel, and in many ways, the birth of ecotourism, now one of the fastest growing segments in global travel. That legacy still defines us. In our industry, experience and expertise truly matter, and those take decades to build. It's this foundation built over nearly 60 years of pioneering exploration that continues to drive the exceptional guest experiences and results we're seeing today. Talking about results, we're pleased to report another quarter of very strong performance with revenue and adjusted EBITDA both exceeding expectations. Consolidated revenues increased significantly. 16.6% with our lean blood and land segments growing 14.4% and 21.1% respectively. Within our lean blood segment, occupancy reached 88%, six points higher than last year, on a 5% increase in capacity in the quarter. resulting in a record level of available guest nights of any quarter of our company's history. Net yields increased 9% to 1,314, the highest third quarter yields in the company's history. We were particularly pleased to see our core Alaska trade perform exceptionally well, achieving almost 16% yield growth. These results demonstrate that travelers truly appreciate the unique, intimate, and highly differentiated experiences we provide thanks to our unparalleled expedition expertise. We will continue to look for opportunities to increase capacity to meet demand in popular destinations like Alaska. From a profitability perspective, we produced the highest level of adjusted EBITDA in a company's history. with adjusted EBITDA increasing 25% to 57.3 million and margins expanding 160 basis points to 23.8%. These results are proof that our commercial strategy to drive occupancy and maximize revenue is working and gives us strong confidence that we are on our way to achieve historical occupancy levels in 2026 and beyond. Looking ahead, our net booking course remains strong for 2026 in both segments and are tracking significantly ahead of prior year. We've seen a very encouraging uptick in 2027 bookings as well as we just launched our 2027 deployment. Supporting our optimism, marking conditions in the luxury travel segment remain highly favorable. According to a recent McKinsey study, demand for luxury tourism is expected to grow faster than any other travel segment, with a projected 10% CAGR through 2028. These industry tailwinds reinforce our confidence in our positioning for sustained growth. Focusing on our three strategic pillars continues to be essential in our path forward. Number one, maximizing revenue generation through occupancy, pricing, and deployment optimization. Number two, optimizing financial performance through cost innovation and fixed asset optimization. And number three, exploring and capitalizing on accretive growth opportunities, including growing our portfolio. Let me begin with our first pillar, which focuses on maximizing revenue generation. Our Disney relationships continues to introduce the National Geographic Lean Blood brand to new audiences and expanded distribution channels. In partnership with National Geographic, we successfully relaunched our youth travel program called Explorers in Training, targeting core family-friendly destinations. This program, combined with other marketing initiatives to drive multigenerational travel, has generated encouraging early results, with travelers 18 years and younger increasing 24% this summer versus prior summer. Our efforts will drive occupancy and yield optimization in family-friendly destinations such as the Galapagos, Alaska, and Iceland. Our Disney Vacation Club activation continues gaining momentum as DVC members can now redeem points for National Geographic Lindblad Expedition Cruises. Our expedition team had an opportunity to sail with and present our brand to guests of the 4,000-passenger Disney Dream, generating not only immediate bookings for members, but also significant interest and leads. This represents the beginning of a significant opportunity to introduce expedition cruising to DVC's most loyal and engaged member base. We continue to see strong momentum from earmarked Disney travel advisors with bookings increasing 42% year to date. We are seeing higher adoption from this distribution channel as we educate and market our brand to these highly productive advisors representing a large opportunity to deepen our penetration. regarding our sales initiatives in august we fully rolled out on board dedicated expedition sales specialists for the quarter our onboard sales program performed exceptionally well with bookings as a percentage of total more than triple year over year as our expedition experts effectively introduce guests to new destinations converting them into repeat customers at the height of their excitement. This program not only drives higher repeat rates, but also expands booking windows, which is so important for pricing optimization. Similarly, our recently expanded outbound sales program is gaining significant traction, with year-to-date sales increasing approximately 80% versus the prior year. We believe we're still in the early stages of optimizing this high potential distribution channel. In our land segment, we delivered strong quarter three performance with our portfolio of premium adventure destinations continuing to exceeding guest expectations. We appointed a dedicated sales leader to capitalize on cross-selling opportunities between our land segment and expedition cruise offerings. creating additional revenue synergies across our platform. Moving to our second pillar, which focuses on optimizing financial performance through cost innovation, we continue to build cost innovation capabilities throughout the organization. This ongoing initiative has us well on our way to meeting our cost efficiency targets this year while kicking off the next round of cost innovation projects. Among our accomplishments this quarter, we renegotiated corporate leases and port agreements generating hundreds of thousands in cost savings. We also recently hired a senior vice president of supply chain and procurement who brings years of world-class experience across multiple industries, including cruise operations. Additionally, we successfully refinanced our debt. extending maturities and lowering our interest rates by approximately 75 basis points. A very meaningful achievement that strengthens our balance sheet flexibility and enables us to continue investing strategically across both our lean plot and land experiences segments. Rick will share more details on this in his section. Our third pillar focuses on accretive growth opportunities. The sustained strength in demand for our product presents compelling opportunities to strategically expand our capacity, including through new builds and charter partnerships. To that end, we've continued to strategically expand our charter offerings. Our inaugural European River Cruising Program exceeded expectations. prompting us to increase the number of voyages for 2027. We've added spring and summer departures, as well as new in-demand Christmas market and holiday sailing offerings. In fact, we just announced our 2027 river collections this morning, including European, Egypt, India, and Vietnam itineraries. Charters provide a very efficient capital light approach to enter high demand markets for the right season. We are also actively evaluating accretive acquisitions both with lean blood and land segments. As always, I want to briefly highlight our why. Because while these three strategic pillars drive our operational excellence and growth, our success is equally rooted in our unwavering commitment to our purpose of responsible exploration. During the quarter, we held our Arctic Visiting Scientist Program in collaboration with National Geographic Society. Our ships hosted 10 projects, six of which were led by National Geographic Explorers and funded by the Lindblad Expedition National Geographic Fund. Participating scientists surveyed glaciers to study their stability and structure, monitored changes in sea temperature, and collected seawater to understand how small microbes survive in dynamic and extreme environments. Guests traveled alongside these scientists and learned about their work in real time, exemplifying how our collaborative impact programs with National Geographic Society differentiate us in the marketplace. Turning to guidance, given the strength of our performances, we are raising full-year guidance for net yield, revenue, and EBITDA. Rick will take you through the specifics of our outlook in his remarks. These results reinforce our confidence that we're executing successfully on our strategic plan and are well positioned to capitalize on the significant opportunities ahead. In closing, I want to express my sincere appreciation to our crew our field experts, the incredible founders of our land companies, and the entire team who work tirelessly to deliver extraordinary guest experiences at the highest standards. This unwavering commitment to excellence is reflected in our result and is built into our DNA. As we look ahead, we remain committed to building on this momentum, continuing to invest in our people and operations and delivering the transformative travel experiences that sets Lindblad apart in the marketplace. Thank you for your continued confidence. We'll look forward to updating you on our progress in quarters ahead. And now I'm turning the call over to Rick for his remarks.