Summer season brightens sales at Thomas Cook
HOLIDAY operator Thomas Cook yesterday said it had enjoyed a pick-up in summer bookings in the second quarter of the year but warned that holiday-goers opting to go on shorter breaks had caused average prices to fall.
The 173-year-old travel group said that 50 per cent of summer holidays had already been sold – one per cent more than the same time last year – with overall bookings up two per cent.
The winter trading season also finished well despite disruption to the market caused by the political unrest in Egypt, which prompted travellers to switch to lower-priced holidays elsewhere.
However average selling prices fell three per cent, which it blamed on more people taking shorter one-week holidays and competition in certain holiday destinations.
Chief executive Harriet Green yesterday said that while average selling prices were below last year in some of its markets, the group’s underlying margin for the full year is expected to be above last year’s levels.
“Margins are expected to improve more than average selling prices, reflecting enhanced yield management and the benefits of our cost out and profit improvement programme,” she said.
Thomas Cook is half-way through a three-year plan to cut jobs, close branches and sell businesses after the Eurozone debt crisis, high fuel costs and unrest in Egypt and Tunisia brought the travel firm to its knees in 2011.
The group said it has reached its disposal target 18 months ahead of plan after completing the sale of its stake in the UK’s air traffic control service NATS for £38m in November.