Skift Take
TUI is acutely aware that its holiday package tours could be prone to seasonality shifts, as the group has just had to deal with the impact of severe weather warnings and wildfires. Despite all this and rising prices, travel demand from its main markets remains strong.
Tour Operator Group TUI has returned to profitability, posting its first post-pandemic net profit. However, its overall performance for the year is expected to be dampened by the impact of the extreme weather and wildfire disruptions experienced in Europe towards the end of the third quarter.
Travel demand in the three months to the end of June, had pushed TUI booking performance to a 6% gain, TUI Group CEO Sebastian Ebel said Wednesday on a conference call.
And while the company had seen a slip in bookings following recent wildfires in Greece's Rhodes Island, Ebel stated that it had “already stabilized.” An estimated 8,000 TUI customers were impacted and the expected cost of the emergency operations is an estimated $27 million (25 million euros) for the full-year.
Ebel tried to dispel concerns