5 HOT STORIES NEWS YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS WEEK
This week’s top stories: 1. Tui’s Jamaica ‘model’ 2. Holmes to Midcounties 3. Freedom ‘wounded’ 4. Barrhead apprentices 5. ‘Accessibility’ advice
1 Scissor brothers: Tui’s Dave
Burling (left), Peter Long (centre) and Johan Lundgren open the Jamaica Sensatori this week
Tui hails its Jamaica product as a ‘model’ as it opens Sensatori
Chloe Berman in Jamaica
Tui’s operation in Jamaica is a model for how it wants to work in other destinations, according to managing director Dave Burling. The company launched the Sensatori
Jamaica in partnership with Karisma Hotels this week and said it hoped to expand further in the destination. Tui will increase capacity in Jamaica
by 40% this summer and by 140% in winter to coincide with cruise ship Thomson Dream being based in Montego Bay. It will operate eight flights a week this winter and six flights a week next summer to the Caribbean island, all on Boeing 787 Dreamliners. Burling said: “80-90% of what we sell in Jamaica is differentiated product. This is a model for other destinations. Punta Cana and Cancun are already similar.” Chief executive Peter Long met
Jamaican prime minister Portia Simpson-Miller during the visit and said the destination would be key to the operator’s long-term strategy. The first Thomson customers at the
4 •
travelweekly.co.uk — 1 May 2014
Jamaica Sensatori will arrive on May 1. Tui is already looking at other properties on the island with a view to expanding its range.
This could include building another
hotel in Negril near the Sensatori on a vacant plot of land, also in partnership with Karisma Hotels.
Burling added: “It’s about finding
suitable properties. We know of one or two possibilities but it does take time for projects to come together.” He said the recently announced
reduction in Air Passenger Duty from 2015 was good news for the Caribbean. Asked if savings would be passed on to Tui customers, Burling said: “There should be a benefit to the customer, so there’s no reason why not.” Burling said Tui was hopeful of finalising a deal with Aphrodite Hills Resort in Cyprus to become a Sensatori. Although the property is in a new Thomson preview brochure for short and mid-haul destinations which came out on Monday, agents cannot book it. “We hope to get it resolved in the next
few weeks,” Burling said. ❯ Aphrodite ‘fiasco’: Comment, page 32
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