Turkey is continuing to rebound for Tui and is on track to return to the level of demand it reached in 2015, says Tui’s commercial director.
The UK’s largest tour operator has released its summer 2019 programme with 720,000 additional seats – half of which have been added in Turkey, Greece and Croatia.
Commercial director for the UK and Ireland, Richard Sofer, said: “There are some really key destinations that we’ve really seen improving over the last six months, and we expect them to grow next year.
“It’s not just Turkey, but Greece and Croatia too, but in Turkey we have seen demand come through quite strongly this year – but it’s always been a favourite destination.”
In February 2016, Tui “remixed” its capacity to Turkey after recording a 40% slump in bookings to the destination following a turbulent year for the country including an attempted military coup and terrorist attacks.
In summer 2015, Turkey was the destination for 14% of the Tui Group’s source markets – with a lower number travelling from the UK and more from Germany and Nordic countries.
When asked if Turkey’s resurgence brought it back to the levels it saw in 2014 and 2015, Sofer said: “It’s not quite where it was three or four years ago but I expect it to recover to those levels over time certainly. It’s performing well ahead of summer 2018.”
Turkey’s official visitor numbers were 28% up in 2017 against 2016 overall and other major tour operators Thomas Cook and Jet2holidays have both reported strong sales results for Turkey recently.
When Tui revealed its results earlier this year, chief executive Friedrich Joussen said it had seen a “return” to Turkey as well as Egypt, which has seen UK visitor numbers fall dramatically since a Russian passenger aircraft was brought down by a bomb in October 2015.
Sofer said Egypt was selling well despite the UK government’s flight ban into Sharm el Sheikh. He said: “At the moment our programme is focussing on Hurghada and having good quality product and enough choice in that programme. Customers are buying into that.”
Tui’s summer 2019 programme also includes 200,000 additional seats to Cape Verde, a destination which Thomas Cook dropped for this summer due to a lack of demand.
Sofer said: “We’ve seen an increase in demand for Cape Verde, where we’ve got some really strong product and exclusive concept resorts. It’s performing well.”
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