By Joanna Plucinska
LONDON (Reuters) -Holiday group TUI said on Tuesday it was seeing a positive travel recovery trend for the upcoming summer season as holidaymakers make plans to enjoy their breaks following a pandemic hiatus.
Many feared recessionary pressures could dampen demand for holidays, but results for airlines such as Ryanair, Wizz Air and easyJet showed promising momentum and indicate that consumers are gearing up for their holidays.
The group, one of the world’s largest tour operators, said its first-quarter revenue reached 3.8 billion euros ($4 billion) on promising winter and summer bookings, while its group EBIT loss almost halved to 158.7 million euros from 274 million euros a year earlier.
Upcoming bookings for the 2023 winter and summer seasons hit 8.7 million.
“Our strategy is clear: quality, cost discipline and market share. New products, additional customers, and as a result, more market share and above-average growth are the basis for future increases in revenue and earnings,” TUI Chief Executive Officer Sebastian Ebel said in a statement.
RESILIENCE
European consumers are grappling with the highest levels of inflation in a generation, but to-date demand for holidays has proved resilient. Low-cost airlines such as Ryanair, Wizz Air and easyJet all reported strong summer bookings earlier this year.
Revenue improved by 1.4 billion euros to 3.8 billion euros year-on-year, with a growth of around a million guests to 3.3 million from the previous quarter.
Demand in the past four weeks had also scaled over pre-pandemic levels, the company said, with prices up year-over-year.
The Hotels and Resorts segment of the company also reported 71% occupancy between October 2022 and March 2023, above the 56% reported for last year.
Separately, TUI shareholders are expected later on Tuesday to vote on a capital increase plan to repay Germany’s Economic Stablisation Fund.
($1 = 0.9317 euros)
(Reporting by Joanna Plucinska; Editing by Himani Sarkar, Kim Coghill and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
