“We are hurting – financially and emotionally.” That was the assessment from Tunisia’s UK tourism chief after the collapse of Thomas Cook dealt a fresh blow to the destination’s tourism recovery.
Cook was the first British operator to return to Tunisia after the Sousse terror attack, and its failure will leave a €70 million hole in the country’s tourism industry, according to Wahida Jaiet, UK and Ireland director of the Tunisia National Tourist Office.
Cook customers comprised around 100,000 of Tunisia’s 180,000 UK guests so far this year, and Jaiet said hopes of reaching 300,000 in 2020 had now “fallen apart”.
Tunisian tourism is still recovering from the 2015 atrocity, in which 30 British Tui customers were murdered, and which took the country off the tourism map until the Foreign Office changed its advice in July 2017.
TTG was onboard Thomas Cook’s first flight to Tunisia in February 2018.