28th Sep 2016 09:27
LONDON (Alliance News) - Tour operator TUI Group on Wednesday said the summer 2016 holiday season is closing as expected, while winter 2016/17 also is trading in line with expectations, ahead of the close of its financial year, adding to positive updates provided by TUI's travel-industry peers earlier in the week.
TUI said the summer 2016 season is 97% sold to date, with revenue and bookings up 1% year-on-year, driven by a strong performance in the UK business, where revenue and bookings are up 5%.
Trading for the winter 2016/17 season is in line with the company's expectations as well, TUI said, with revenue up 11% on this time last year and bookings up 5%. TUI said this was driven in particular by UK long-haul growth.
TUI added that it is confident of delivering between 12% and 13% growth in underlying earnings before interest, tax and amortisation in its full year which ends on Friday.
"This demonstrates the strength of our integrated business model and the success of our content centric strategy, as well as the continued delivery of our merger synergies," Chief Executive Friedrich Joussen said in a statement.
TUI will release its full-year results on December 8.
On Tuesday, rival Thomas Cook Group PLC had released a trading update saying its summer 2016 holiday season was closing as expected as well, while winter 2016/17 bookings were in line, although its summer bookings figures weren't as strong as TUI's.
Thomas Cook said summer bookings fell by 4% overall, but would have grown by 8% excluding Turkey, which has suffered a reduction in demand over the past year due to the terrorist attacks and political turmoil plaguing the country.
This was, however, in line with Thomas Cook's expectations, with 89% of the summer programme sold, down from 92% the year before. Winter bookings, meanwhile, are up 8% so far.
Like TUI, Thomas Cook maintained its full-year underlying earnings before interest and tax guidance, of GBP300 million, which will be down on the GBP310 million made the year before.
On Monday, cruise operator Carnival PLC had reported growth in profit in the third quarter of its financial year to USD1.47 billion from USD1.25 billion the year before, as revenue rose to USD5.10 billion from USD4.88 billion.
Carnival said it is on track to deliver 25% earnings growth in the full year.
Shares in TUI were trading up 1.8% at 1,106.00 pence on Wednesday, while Thomas Cook shares were up 1.5% to 70.81p and Carnival shares were up 1.6% at 3,787.00p.
By Karolina Kaminska; [email protected] @KarolinaAllNews
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