Asiatravel.com Holdings, the regional online travel and hotel reservation service provider, posted a net profit attributable to shareholders of $5.5 million for its FY2009 results ended Sept 30, 2009, an improvement of 0.7% over that in FY2008.

Revenue for the full year rose 4.3% to $89.4 million from $85.7 million.

Asiatravel.com says the global recession has affected the travel, tourism and hospitality sectors, causing a drop in visitor arrivals in all its core destinations and hotel room rates to fall by more than 30% in some of its core destinations.

The group’s core online room nights grew by 7% year-on-year. However, the growth in room nights was not enough to mitigate the drop in profits from its core online hotel reservation business caused by the steep decline in room rates.

However, Asiatravel says the group’s newly launched online air ticketing business recorded a growth of 136% year-on-year. This new revenue and profit stream has helped the group to offset the fall in profit from its core online hotel reservation business.

Asiatravel.com is proposing a final dividend of 1 cent per share, subject to the approval of shareholders.