Speaking during the group’s third quarter results call this morning, chief executive Fritz Joussen said that even with changes to destination advice and quarantine measures the business would succeed, although warned lockdowns would be more problematic.
“The integrated model is better than independent,” he said. “You can quickly contact the customer and change them even for the next day – re-bookings from A to B is much easier.”
Asked what assumptions had been made for a normalised level of demand for 2022, Joussen said: “Yes we need a vaccine and the assumption is that we will see a vaccine from next year.
“My view is that then demand will return. When you see bookings for next year – they’re normalised.”
Tui Group has reported a 145% year-on-year increase in 2021 summer bookings.
Joussen clarified though that figure did include the use of vouchers, but said even without bookings for summer 2021 were ahead of last year. New bookings since June were at 430,000 compared with 380,000 last year.
“In 2022 my personal view is the world will be good again,” he said.
Joussen added that while long-haul was not proving very popular at the moment, bookings were generally “much more short term”.
“People are waiting longer to book,” he said. “They’re very good for August now but October is slow. I assume that’s down to consumer confidence.”
Asked about how the UK government’s Spain U-Turn had impacted the business, Joussen said while it had a big impact, “people had booked other destinations instead”.
He said cruises without disembarkation were “working quite well” but were not a long-term solution.
“Booking levels for cruising next year very good,” he added.
