Tui: Wildfires hold back growth but travel demand continues to soar
The post-Covid recovery of summer holidays helped push Tui towards its targets for the 2023 financial year.
In a trading update out this morning, the tour operator reported 13.7m bookings this summer, five per cent up on last year and 96 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.
Following its positive results, investors backed Tui with its share price rising six per cent after the open.
Bookings in the final month of the season in particular were ahead of the year before. Tui extended the summer season into November, in particular to Turkey and Greece, to cover demand outside the traditional summer months.
Tui also noted that prices were four per cent higher against the prior season.
Chief executive Sebastian Ebel said “had it not been for the various events during the last few months which were outside of our control, not least the wildfires on Rhodes, we would have performed ahead of expectations”.
Looking into the winter, the Hanover-based firm said there was a “promising booking situation” across all key markets. The firm highlighted that, “as usual”, Brits were leading the charge in seeking winter sun with 38 per cent of the season sold.
The firm reconfirmed its ambitions to increase underlying earnings “signficiantly”. It releases its full year results in December.
“The positive trading momentum is continuing, and I am very optimistic for the coming Winter and Summer seasons. For Winter 2023/24, we are still at an early booking stage, but the increase of +15 per cent in bookings compared to the previous year, is a very encouraging signal,” Ebel said.