Although progressing vaccination campaigns, increased availability of rapid and self-tests and the planned opening strategies of government show a positive effect on the booking behaviour of UK Tui customers.
Interest in holidays in the summer season is evident across all distribution channels, Tui said. “Customer demand is there, people want to travel.”
Overall, Tui Group-wide bookings for summer 2021, including rebookings and voucher redemptions, remain unchanged at 2.8 million guests – albeit 60% below the comparable level for summer 2019.
Overall capacity for the peak summer travel months from July 2021 has been adjusted to 75% (previously 80%) compared to 2019.
“The flexible business model allows for demand-driven capacity management, and for the peak summer travel season we are aiming for good load factors and improved margins again,” the company said in a statement.
“The group remains flexible to increase capacity again in the short term as further progress is made on pandemic response and vaccination campaigns, travel restrictions are lifted and customer demand increases.
“The goal remains safe and responsible holidays with very high standards of hygiene during travel.”
Since February, Tui recorded a total of around 180,000 new customer bookings for the key holiday months in the fourth business quarter (July, August, September).
In addition, many guests from the UK who had planned a holiday before 17 May 2021 and are affected by the adjusted programme have rebooked for a later travel date in 2021.
For example, bookings for October 2021 are up 12% at Tui UK.
“We continue to see strong pent-up demand, and the desire for travel is evident in the UK with bookings for next summer 2022 now around 120% higher compared to summer 2021 bookings,” said Tui.
“Bookings for May 2022 in particular are recording an increase of more than 150% compared to bookings for May 2021.”
Tui added that in Germany it supports the initiative of the airlines and the German government to test all travellers at their holiday destination during the Easter holidays before flying back to Germany.
