Increased demand for ‘unique’ holidays helped boost summer trading at Tui Travel.
Europe’s largest travel group today reported underlying profit growth of at least 9% following strong high season summer trading.
The proportion of unique holidays sold rose by three percentage points to account for 70% of summer mainstream sales.
Online bookings were up by 9% to account for 37% of mainstream holidays booked.
Higher average selling prices were recorded across the Tui’s mainstream holiday sector with an improved yield performance from the UK despite booking levels being flat.
A total of 38% of the overall winter mainstream programme has been booked, a rise of 2% year-on-year.
Summer 2015 bookings from the UK are up by 11%, with average selling prices rising by 2%. Sales of unique holidays are up 12%, accounting for 84% of holidays sold to date, broadly in line with the prior year. To date 16% of the programme has been sold, Tui said.
Tui also reported high demand for long-haul destinations such as Jamaica and Mexico for the coming winter, driven by the expansion of its Boeing 787 Dreamliner fleet.
Online bookings for winter 2014/15 are up 11%, accounting for 47% of bookings, up three percentage points on the prior year.
About 34% of the winter programme has been sold.
Chief executive Peter Long, delivering a trading update this morning, said: “We are very pleased with our trading during the summer 2014 peak season, particularly in the UK and Germany, with most of our programmes now almost fully sold.
“Our strong trading and market performance continues to be driven by increased customer demand for unique holidays and higher conversion rates from our web platforms, driven by our digital transformation strategy.
“Our flexible and resilient business model is enabling us to deliver sustainable, profitable growth against a backdrop of more competitive trading in the commodity space and an increase in airline capacity.
“As a result of our successful strategy, we are confident of achieving full year underlying1 operating profit growth of at least 9% on a constant currency basis2, versus our previous guidance of 7% to 10%.”
Preliminary results for the year ending September 30 are due to be released on December 4.