** Shares of travel and cruise company Viking Holdings down 2% at $29.99 in premarket trading
** Co posts a wider Q1 net loss, partly hurt by higher operating costs, even as it sees a strong demand for cruise vacations
** Net loss attributable to VIK comes in at $494.2 mln, or $1.21/shr, vs $214.23 mln, or 52 cents/shr a year ago
** Co sees total cruise operating expenses jump 5.7% from a year ago
** VIK's Q1 revenue jumps by 14.2% to $718.2 million
** Yet, CFO Leah Talactac, on a post-earnings call, says the river cruise segment's occupancy declined slightly to 92.1% in Q1 from 93.5% last year, primarily due to lower occupancy for Egypt itineraries
** On Tuesday, several Wall Street brokerages began coverage of stock with bullish views on its growth opportunities
** Stock has gained over 17% since its first day of trading on May 1
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