Thomas Cook had nearly 350 clients in Berlin, including 95 from the UK, which it was contacting in the immediate aftermath on Tuesday morning. Cook said it would follow Foreign Office advice on visiting Berlin and advised anyone with concerns about future to travel to call 01733 224536.
Kirker Holidays had two sets of clients in Berlin and has contacted them both. The operator’s joint managing director Ted Wake said that the Christmas market season had nearly come to a close and that there had been no calls from concerned clients in the immediate aftermath of Berlin.
“The general feeling is that people are pragmatic and that consumers are used to a higher level of risk – customers are also making a judgement about the risk of staying at home and going about their business,” he said.
“I think if we were to ask consumers today, they would say that the number of incidents that we have seen in the last six months has been lower than they would have anticipated.”
Jane Atkins, SuperBreak sales director added: “As always, our immediate thoughts are for those people that have lost loved ones in Berlin. We currently have a handful of customers in Berlin, all of whom have been contacted. For the few forward bookings we have, at this stage we will treat each one on a case by case basis and will assist customers with amendments to minimise costs if required."
EasyJet Holidays has 239 clients in Berlin from across Europe. “We have been contacting customers overnight and as far as we are aware, no-one has been affected,” said a spokesperson. She added, however, that this process was “still continuing”.
The operator has stopped short of issuing advice about travel to Berlin. “At the moment, the programme is still operating as normal,” she said.
Experts do not believe there will be a long-lasting effect on the city break sector. Wouter Geerts, travel analyst at Euromonitor said: “Christmas markets are a big attraction for German cities, including Berlin, and this attack will no doubt impact the amount of visitors for the remainder of this year. However, I do not believe that this attack will significantly impact tourism to Germany and Berlin in 2017.”
