The forest fires in Rhodes have been expensive for the world’s largest tour operator. Villages and hotels had to be evacuated and numerous travelers had to be taken home earlier. Tui put the resulting costs for the group at 25 million euros. They result from lost business, customer compensation and repatriation flights. After this experience, Tui is also considering offering customers insurance for travel destinations that could be affected by climate change-related events such as forest fires, said CEO Sebastian Ebel.
Because of climate change with heat waves and forest fires, the travel group is considering changes to its holiday offerings. “We will be traveling to Greece by mid-November and I actually asked my colleagues if we should maybe do it by the end of the year or after Christmas,” said the Tui boss on Wednesday. In addition, more Nordic countries could be offered as travel destinations, i.e. countries in cooler climate zones. “It gives us more growth opportunities.”
Despite extreme heat and forest fires, Ebel expects a strong travel summer for this year. The Mediterranean remains the most sought-after destination for summer vacations, said the CEO when presenting the balance sheet for the past quarter on Wednesday. Summer bookings are currently six percent higher than a year ago. Customers spend an average of seven percent more on their trips. With 12.5 million customers to date, bookings are 95 percent of the pre-pandemic summer 2019 level. The forest fires in southern Europe only briefly dampened the development. “We had and still have a consistently good level of bookings,” said Ebel. This also applies to the coming winter.