Update: Tourism to Turkey down 40%

Holiday bookings to Turkey have fallen by 40% says Tui, owner of Thomson Holidays and First Choice, due to fighting and mass migration in neighbouring Syria, with customers heading to Spain and Greece instead. Furthermore, Tui revealed that demand for breaks in Turkey fell markedly in Germany, a country that traditionally sends the most visitors to the Turkey, after ten Germans were killed in a suicide bombing in Istanbul last month. Russia has also told its citizens to avoid Turkey after one of its war planes was shot down last year. In response, Turkey is now offering jet fuel subsidies to operators. Hurriyet News says the "situation is so bad that we should simply accept this year is a 'lost year' for tourism".

Summer holiday bookings to Turkey have tumbled by 40% amid fighting and mass migration in neighbouring Syria, Tui, the owner of Thomson Holidays and First Choice, has said.

About one in seven of Tui’s customers holidayed in Turkey last summer but the current crisis has led tourists to opt for Greece and Spain instead.

Turkey is particularly popular with German holidaymakers, however Tui said many looking for an alternative place in the sun were opting for the Caribbean.

The decline in Turkey bookings, coupled with continued weakness in north Africa due to terrorism in Egypt and Tunisia, did not stop Tui reporting improved results. Underlying losses in the first quarter, when tour operators traditionally operate in the red, narrowed slightly from €104.8m (£81m) to €101.7m on sales up 5.4% to €3.7bn. Tui expects to report a 10% lift in underlying profit at the end of the year.

Its chief executive, Friedrich Joussen, said Tui had “delivered a good underlying performance in spite of the backdrop of geopolitical turbulence in some of our destinations”.

The UK performed slightly ahead of the rest of Tui’s business, with bookings for the current winter 3% higher, compared with a flat market overall. The contrast is even more marked for summer bookings, with the UK up 9% compared with a 1% increase across the company.

The UK had been partly boosted by the strength of the pound against the euro, Tui said.

But bookings to long-haul destinations had also improved, up 16% to destinations such as Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica.

Tui is phasing out its Thomson brand, which it felt was often confused with Thomas Cook. It is expected to disappear by 2017.