FTI is expanding niche destinations such as Morocco and Oman, adding capacity for Egypt and broadening its luxury programme Gold for the forthcoming winter season.
The Munich-based tour operator has low revenue growth for this summer despite the turbulent bookings trends in recent months. Bookings are strong for Spain, Morocco, Bulgaria, Italy, Greece, the UAE and Oman, according to the company. Turkey bookings are down by 7% (with a 23% revenue decline), although the company remained confident that bookings would pick up soon, while demand for Egypt has recovered in recent weeks.
Managing director Ralph Schiller was relatively relaxed about the situation. “The only stable thing is that nothing is stable. We’ve got used to it, and customers have as well,” he commented. “Some destinations are more sensitive, but they are compensated by uncritical destinations.” Looking ahead, Schiller said: “We’re confident that we can maintain the current growth figure and close the 2015/16 business year with a single-digit increase.”
For the coming winter, Germany’s fourth-largest tour operator is keeping prices broadly stable, although the Turkish Riviera and Agadir will be up to 30% cheaper due to much lower hotel rates. The group’s hotel brand Labranda will increase its portfolio by at least five properties to 31 hotels, including two in Morocco, two in the Canary Islands and one in Egypt. Above all, the tour operator is maintaining its approach of building up niche destinations to compensate for those with weaker demand.
Niche destinations
For example, FTI sees plenty of potential for Morocco, which has been spared the kinds of terror attacks suffered by other North African destinations. The tour operator has tripled air capacity to 45,000 airline seats based on 12 weekly non-stop flights from Germany to Agadir, including seven full charters with Sun Express. The country has been combined with the nearby Canary Islands (and also the Cape Verde islands) in a joint brochure, and customers can book combined packages in the two destinations. “The Atlantic coasts of the destinations are only 90km apart, so a beach holiday on Gran Canaria can be superbly combined with a cultural trip in the kingdom (of Morocco),” said Schiller.
Another niche destination is Salalah, the beach destination in southern Oman, which is featured in two different brochures (Orient and Indian Ocean) with 11 hotels and will be served by twice-weekly non-stop Eurowings A330 flights from Cologne. Capacity has been increased for Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Ras Al Khaimah, although there will be no charter flights to the latter emirate due to a lack of suitable aircraft, despite nearly 40,000 bookings this summer.
FTI has even expanded capacity for Egypt, with 29 full-charter flights a week from nine German cities with a total of 200,000 seats for the winter season. There are 17 weekly flights to Hurghada, eight to Marsa Alam and four to Luxor. The programme covers 156 hotels and the number of Nile cruise ships has been increased by three to 18.
Long-haul holidays should once again become a ‘major pillar’ for FTI, according to Mathias Huwiler, head of specialist and long-haul holidays. The long-haul programme has been expanded for next winter with the integration of the ‘Gold by FTI’ luxury programme, with 160 hotels, into the main country brochures. “We’ve expanded the premium segment in all product areas,” he said.
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