The popularity of travel company Tui Group’s Mediterranean and Caribbean hotels and cruises has helped it minimise losses but the drop in demand to countries such as Turkey and North Africa continues to slash its profits.
Europe’s largest tour operator managed to slice pre-tax losses for the first half of its trading year by a quarter to €310.8m but its shares still fell more than 5pc in early trading to £11.27.
The tour operator’s hotels are already 62% booked for the summer ahead, 4% higher than last year, with holidays to Greece, Bulgaria, Croatia and Cape Verde setting the trend.
Its hotels and resorts division sent sales to €300m while its cruises business hit €346m – both up around 12% – with its Rui and Robinson brand of hotels boasting a rise in the amount of money they make from each bed.
The Group announced though that it remains on target to increase its growth by at least 10 percent in underlying earnings in its full-year results, along with a 3 percent rise in revenue.
“Our transformation to an integrated tourism business is on track. We are delivering strong growth in our hotel and cruise brands. These two segments contribute half of our operating result on a full year basis,” stressed TUI chief executive Fritz Joussen and added: “The TUI Group is changing quickly – our guidance remains unchanged despite a challenging environment. We reiterate our guidance to deliver at least 10 percent growth in underlying EBITA this year.”
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