Exclusive: Europe’s first travel ETF to list in London this month
Europe’s first travel and leisure ETF will launch in London later this month, as the industry starts to bounce back from the devastating impact of the pandemic.
The Airlines, Hotels and Cruise Lines UCITS ETF will list on the London Stock Exchange in June and will be passported for sale across Europe, City PM can reveal.
The ETF on the HANetf platform will deliver exposure to the travel industry and track global airlines, hotels and cruise line operators.
The industry has suffered a major blow over the past year after the pandemic all but stopped travel. Total global spending on leisure travel halved from $4.692 trillion in 2019 to $2.373 trillion last year.
Business travel took an even bigger hit, falling 52 per cent from $1.445 trillion to $694bn.
But with the vaccine rollout and gradual relaxation of restrictions on international travel, spending is expected to return to near pre-pandemic levels. Pent-up demand and the growth of disposable income have led analysts to predict spending to rise 45 per cent, although it will still fall below the 2019 peak.
Earlier today Wizz Air said it expected to see further losses in the next year unless restrictions are permanently lifted. It reported an annual net loss of €576m.
“Over the longer term, the growth of disposable income and savings as well as the size and pace of a global economic recovery will be key factors although it may take a few years to regain the lost ground,” Hector McNeil, co-founder and co-chief executive of HANetf.
“Launching the Airlines, Hotels and Cruise Lines ETF expands our range of innovative ETFs and ETCs and is another European first which we are delighted to bring to market with. We are very proud of the many firsts we have brought to the European ETF market including Europe’s first Space ETF and Europe’s first pure-play solar energy ETF,” he added.
The ‘TRYP’ ETF will track the Solactive Airliens, Hotels, Cruise Lines Index, and back-tested performance shows it achieved 62.07 per cent net total returns in the past year.