Isis attacks: Thomas Cook sees Canaries, North America and Mexico holiday bookings rise
Thomas Cook said bookings in the UK over the last eight weeks are up by 8% with an average price increase of 2%.
Canaries, Cape Verde, North America and Mexico are the winter destinations British holiday makers are rushing to after the terrorist attack in Tunisia and Egypt.
Over the last eight weeks Thomas Cook said bookings are up by 8 per cent with an average price increase of 2 per cent.
There are clear signs travellers were coming back to package tours, according to Chief executive Peter Fankhauser.
“In my 30 years in the industry I have never experienced anything like the events of the last year and more recently the dreadful events in Egypt and Paris,” he said.
“We operate in very uncertain times but we are also seeing that customers want the security that tour operators offer.”
The firm lost £130 million of revenue when it stopped holidays to Tunisia last year and has so far cancelled all holidays to Sharm el-Sheikh until December.
It and four other airlines were meeting with the Department of Transport this evening for the latest update on travel advice.
Fankhauser said: “I cannot forecast when we will restart holidays to Egypt. We are fully supportive of the Government and the Egyptian authorities in their aim to make the airport at Sharm fully safe before we go back.”
Thomas Cook reported a better than expected 13 per cent fall in full year operating profits to £310 million and cheered investors with news that it will pay its first dividend since 2011 on next year’s profits.
The shares rose 8.75p, or 9 per cent, to 107.2p.
Fankhauser, who took over after the shock departure of Harriet Green a year ago, said that the firm had made moves to “empower front line staff” in the wake of the heavy criticism over the deaths of Boobby and Christi Shepherd in one of its resorts in Corfu in 2006.
He also said it was marketing higher quality hotels with more of its own branded ones and recognised its “duty of care” to customers.
A new boutique brand Casa Cook has been launched with the first hotel opening in Rhodes in May next year.
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