TUI pins hopes on summer as losses widen
TUI TRAVEL, the world’s biggest tour operator, said yesterday it was on track to meet full-year expectations despite seeing losses widen in the first half of the year.
The owner of Thomson and First Choice posted an underlying operating loss of £317m in the six months to 31 March compared with £307m last year, blaming weak winter sales, but said it expects to deliver a strong performance in its key summer trading period.
“We have seen improved summer 2012 trading performance in all other mainstream markets except France which remains difficult,” chief executive Peter Long said.
“Given the challenging economic environment, we remain cautious, however, overall trading performance continues to be in line with the board’s expectations.”
Revenues rose five per cent to £5.45bn in the first half. Long said overall trading for summer 2012 was good with booking volumes well ahead of last year.
The group said exclusive holidays accounted for 62 per cent of UK bookings over the winter, up 12 percentage points on the prior year, while the proportion of holidays sold online increased to 47 per cent compared to the previous winter.
Shares in TUI fell 3.21 per cent to 183.7p yesterday.