Tui Travel has taken a swipe at Thomas Cook, accusing its rival of resting on its laurels, after reporting a bumper end to summer season in one of its largest source markets.
The tour operator posted its pre-close trading update last week, revealing a strong performance in both the UK and Germany.
In the UK, Tui Travel said 98% of its programme had been sold for summer 2014. This compared favourably with Germany - where 97% was sold, but its overall mainstream bookings for the latter were up 9%, with higher margins.
By contrast, Cook said that its bookings in Germany had “moderated”, leading to “weaker margins in the fourth quarter”, despite reporting “strong late summer 2014 bookings” in its major source markets.
Tui’s chief financial officer William Waggott said unlike its rival, it had introduced improvements to help mitigate the impact of the World Cup in Germany, as the nation stayed glued to their TV screens.
“It wasn’t that bad for us before the World Cup because we’ve done a lot to our product this year in terms of changing the product on the airline, changing the pricing model on ‘1-2-Fly’,” he said.
