High spending Brits boost Tui Travel’s profits
TUI TRAVEL posted better than expected profits yesterday thanks to strong sales of more expensive holidays to British and German customers.
The travel operator behind Thomson and First Choice holiday brands posted a 13 per cent rise in underlying operating profit to £555m for the year to 30 September driven by the growing popularity of higher-margin holidays.
Profits in the UK and Germany rose by 27 per cent and 30 per cent respectively. This contrasted with France, where profits were 28 per cent lower.
Chief executive Peter Long said it was also benefiting from an improvement in sales of holidays to Egypt after Britain’s foreign office recently relaxed some of its travel advice.
The group hiked its final dividend by 17 per cent to 9.75p per share and also said it was confident of delivering its target for underlying profit growth of seven to 10 per cent next year as people spend more on holidays abroad.