Turkey ‘stands out’ as top holiday destination for 2018: Top UK tour operator

LONDON

Turkey is becoming one of the top destinations for British holidaymakers, according to the United Kingdom’s giant tour operator Thomas Cook.

According to chief executive Peter Fankhauser, early figures for this year show a shift towards east of Spain for summer 2018 with “Turkey the stand-out market so far.”

“We continue to see significant margin pressure in holidays to Spain, our largest destination, due to higher hotel cost inflation and increased flight capacity,” said a statement from Thomas Cook, as quoted by Anadolu Agency.

“We continue to take actions to help mitigate this, by re-balancing our program towards higher margin destinations such as Turkey and Egypt, generating efficiencies, and re-positioning the business through greater online distribution and an intense focus on sales of holidays to own-brand hotels,” said the statement.

According to the latest figures, summer 2018 is 34 percent sold, 3 percent higher than this time last year. In the U.K., average selling prices are up 6 percent.

Fankhauser said Greece is once again selling strongly for the summer, but “Turkey has the potential to catch up to Greece.”

“From all that we see so far, customers’ appetite for a summer holiday abroad shows no sign of slowing down. We’ve taken early action to meet strong demand for destinations in the eastern Mediterranean,” he said.

Thomas Cook also said it would boost capacity by 10 percent in its airline business for this summer in response to growing demand from holidaymakers in Germany and Britain for flights, as reported by Reuters.

Thomas Cook, which pioneered the package holiday concept when it was set up in 1841, is more exposed to Turkey than its larger rival Touristic Union International (TUI) Group.

Turkey’s tourism revenue reached $26.3 billion in 2017 with more than 38 million foreigners visiting the country, according to official figures.