Speaking on a conference call after the firm announced its financial results, Fritz Joussen, Tui Group chief executive, said the firm had seen 4% more customers but 8% more revenue for summer as well as winter 2017.
He said that summer bookings from the UK were up 3% on last year and revenues were 12% higher, driven by a combination of higher prices and customers spending more to travel further afar.
“Customers are spending more partly because prices have gone up,” he said, citing the depreciation of the pound.
“Is that something we can pass on? In Spain potentially not because there is scarce supply [of accommodation] and we see that with our own hotels.
“We put money into renovations and making hotels more attractive.”
Joussen also echoed Cook in describing Greece as being “surprisingly strong” this year.
“Long-haul and cruises are also growing strongly,” he said. “But for summer it is still early days.”
Joussen also said the group had seen a “recovery to Egypt”, although not from the UK market.
TTG reported this week that the Nordic countries had become the latest to lift their Sharm el Sheikh flights ban.
“Other than the UK our source markets are mainly targeted to other parts of the country [than Sharm],” he said.
Asked whether Tui Group anticipated any negative impact on bookings or perception as the Tunisia inquests continue in the UK, Joussen would not comment at length.
He said: “It was a very tragic incident and we are very open and contributing all that we can to the inquests.”
