Brits to holiday in new hotspots Cuba and Bulgaria after ditching Turkey

With Turkey’s tourist numbers unsurprisingly slumping due to recent terror attacks, Thomas Cook Chief Executive, Peter Fankhauser, said that more tourists will be ditching Turkey for more secure countries including Cuba and Bulgaria.

Addressing the company’s annual outlook on Thursday, Thomas Cook stated that their sales took an 8% decrease to £1.85billion due to the recent terror attacks affecting both Turkey and Brussels. The company’s summer booking were also reported to have decreased by 5%.

Talking about the annual outlook, the Chief Executive said: “While demand for most other destinations has been strong, demand for Turkey has been volatile and remains significantly below last year’s levels.

“We have made further capacity cuts to Turkey for summer 2016 and switched this into alternative destinations including Spain, Bulgaria, Greece, Cuba, and the USA.”

Talking about additional factors that also could have caused a decline in bookings, Fankhauser said that although Brexit did not have a ‘noticeable impact’ on the company’s booking statistics, the Brexit vote to leave the EU ‘added to a general sense of uncertainty - for our business and our customers alike.”

Senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, Laith Khalaf said: “Thomas Cook is facing severe disruption right now, with political upheaval, acts of terrorism, and the fall in the pound resulting from Brexit all serving to deter holidaymakers from travelling.

“The company’s falling revenues were greeted by a strong rise in the share price, which is testament to just how low expectations were.”

Published 21 Jul 2016

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