NEWS ROUND-UP
READERS’ LIVES: “Our biggest sellers are match breaks to Premier League games” Charlie Coyle, page 34
Cook tips Turkey ‘to return’ but cuts capacity by 29%
Phil Davies and Hollie-Rae Merrick
Thomas Cook boss Peter Fankhauser believes demand to Turkey will return, despite the operator witnessing a “sharp drop in demand” in the last quarter of 2015.
Speaking in a trading update last
week, he said Cook felt “sensitivity” in the market and had begun shifting 800,000 seats away from Turkey as early as October last year. Fankhauser said Turkey had been accounting for 18% of Cook’s business, but that the operator had opted to switch 29% of its flying to the country to destinations such as Spain and Bulgaria. “In the aftermath of the terrible incident in Istanbul [in January], we saw a sharp drop in demand to Turkey,” he said. “We planned a 29% shift in capacity; that seems to be the right level of capacity but we are remaining flexible.” However, Fankhauser insisted
that consumers still wanted to go to the destination and described it as a “recovering market”.
Longman: It is critical agents have the right tools to serve clients
Tui boss Nick Longman was reminded “just how hard it can be to sell a holiday” on a back‑to‑the‑floor day at Thomson’s Crawley store. The UK and Ireland managing
director said the experience at the agency also showed how critical it is that agents have the “right tools” to serve clients. Speaking about the day, he said:
Peter Fankhauser: ‘We are seeing
[Turkey] demand coming back’
NEWS IN BRIEF
Ian Scott quits Dubai Tourism to join AMG
Ian Scott, Dubai Tourism’s UK and Ireland director, is to leave after eight years at the tourist board. He will join AMG, the parent company of AMG Representation, a sales and marketing agency, in the new role of group managing director at the end of March.
Princess Cruises promotes Sarah Walker to sales role
Princess Cruises has promoted Sarah Jane Walker to sales manager for the academy team and regional business. She will replace Shane Riley when he moves to sister brands P&O Cruises and Cunard on February 22.
“We can see from Google searches that people still want to go to Turkey”
“Turkey is a value-for-money destination and we see from Google searches that people still want to go there,” he said. “We are seeing the demand coming back.” Fankhauser said he didn’t
regard the shift in demand to western Mediterranean destinations as permanent but
as a trend “for the time being”. Cook reported group sales for summer 2016 as 2% behind the same stage last year, at 29% of capacity sold, but UK average prices for package holidays were up by 4%. The group’s overall bookings for summer are down by 5%, partly due to charter capacity cuts of 3%. The company described winter 2015-16 group trading as being in line with expectations with 82% of the programme sold. Bookings from the UK were down by 2% with
average selling prices up by 2%. › Comment, page 30
“My day with the Crawley team
has just reasserted to me how important it is that they have all the right tools to deliver the service our customers expect. “We’ve implemented Connect,
CRAWLEY: Longman with Tui staff
“I’d forgotten just how hard it can be to sell holidays, but the team are so confident and they have such an infectious level of spirit and energy.
8
travelweekly.co.uk 18 February 2016
which is all about linking data through every stage of the customer journey, but we need to ensure we continue to invest in and further enhance the systems available to our agents.” Longman said all head office
staff were encouraged to take part in ‘back to the floor’ exercises to see how holidays are sold on the high street.
All Leisure seeks to delist after posting £500k profit
All Leisure Group returned to profit last year but said it was actively pursuing de-listing from the AIM stock market due to costs associated with being public. The parent of Travelsphere, Swan Hellenic and Voyages of Discovery described trading as challenging but reported a profit after tax of £500,000 for the year ending October 31, compared with a £7.5 million loss the previous year.
POLL
How would you describe your bookings for Turkey this year compared with 2015?
8%
25% Down a bit 67%
Similar Down a lot
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