Strong trading with improved profit margins and load factors boosted Tui Travel this summer.
Early bookings from the UK for summer 2013 are “significantly outperforming” the market, particularly for differentiated holidays.
Summer 2013 UK bookings are up by 10% against the same period last year, with a slight increase in capacity and average selling prices up by 3%.
Sales of differentiated product are up 15% compared with this time last year, accounting for 68% of holidays sold to date, up one percentage point on the prior year. A total of 11% of the programme has been sold so far.
The company reported strong online and differentiated holiday sales as part of an “encouraging start” to winter 2012-13 trading.
Giving a trading update today ahead of reporting its full year results on December 4, Europe’s largest travel group revealed a move into Brazil with the acquisition of the country’s fourth largest accommodation-only online travel agency MalaPronto.com for an undisclosed sum.
The company has assets worth £400,000 and achieved 117% compound growth over the past seven years to mare than 130,000 room nights sold in 2011.
Chief executive Peter Long said: “We are very pleased with our summer 2012 performance, with most of our programmes now almost fully sold.
“High demand in the peak summer period, driven by our strategy of differentiated and exclusive product distributed online, has resulted in strong lates margins and load factors.
“We remain on track to meet our full year expectations, with strong underlying trading offset by the impact of re-translation of fourth quarter eurozone earnings.
“Our continued outperformance in a challenging macroeconomic environment demonstrates our robust strategy is delivering clear results.”