Luxor4u

British holidaymakers are returning to Egypt and Turkey in droves this year, according to the Thomas Cook Holiday Report 2018.

The giant tour operator has sold 89 per cent more holidays to Egypt than at the same point in 2017, while 84 per cent more travellers have booked for Turkey than last year.

The increase in numbers to Egypt means visitor numbers to the Red Sea are now close to where they were for Thomas Cook in 2015.

On 31 October in that year, a Russian holiday flight crashed shortly after take-off from the main resort, Sharm el Sheikh, killing 224 passengers and crew.

It is believed that a bomb was placed on board the plane while it was on the ground in Egypt. Five days after the tragedy, the UK government banned British airlines from operating to and from Sharm el Sheikh.

The prohibition remains in place, despite Egyptian claims that security standards at its airports are now world class. For the past two years, the Foreign Office travel advice has read: “The UK government will continue working with the Egyptian authorities to enable regular flights between the UK and Sharm el Sheikh to resume.

“We are also liaising with travel companies so that they are able to resume flights and holidays in Sharm el Sheikh as soon as appropriate security arrangements are in place.”

Because of the continuing ban, most British tourists stay in Hurghada and Marsa Alam, on the opposite shore of the Red Sea.

Thomas Cook said that 51 per cent of bookings for Egypt are for families. For Turkey, the figure is 61 per cent.

The company said: “Clearly, the nation’s appetite for sunshine at a fair price fuels our demand to revisit these old favourites.”

In February 2018, Thomas Cook became the first major UK tour operator to return to Tunisia, where 30 British holidaymakers were gunned down in a terrorist attack in June 2015.

Forty-four per cent of bookings to the North African nation of Tunisia are for families. Peter Fankhauser, Thomas Cook chief executive, said: “We started with just a handful of hotels near to Hammamet where we were confident that we could offer the quality our customers expect.

“Our first flights sold out and bookings have been strong in the months since. Meanwhile, the Tunisian people have gone out of their way to make our customers feel welcome, recognising our commitment to rebuild the destination. As a result, we have increased our flight programme to 11 flights a week for this summer.”

The Foreign Office warns: “Terrorists are still very likely to try to carry out attacks in Tunisia.”

Thomas Cook said a combination of security fears, together with the collapse of firms such as Monarch, are steering travellers back from independent trips to package holidays.

“Ongoing political uncertainty, combined with the regrettable failure in recent years of several established holiday companies, has no doubt influenced the nation’s decision to think again about how they holiday,” the firm said.

Thomas Cook is following its larger rival, TUI, in adding premium accommodation and offloading cheaper options. The firm reports five-star bookings are up 38 per cent. Self-catering bookings for summer 2018 are down 9 per cent.

“If travellers are concerned about the economy, Brexit or any impending financial doom, they do a good job of hiding it,” the firm said.

The move to buying on smartphones is continuing: 23 per cent of holiday bookings made online with Thomas Cook are on mobiles, while one in five of all bookings for Thomas Cook Airlines are made on a smartphone.

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/ne ... 16526.html

Some of the comments on the Independent article were interesting :

Fur-Q
4 days ago
Brits will book anywhere that's cheap. Avoiding food poisoning or not being shot at are not high the list of holiday requirements. Sun & cheap booze wins every time.

two20
4 days ago
"Tourists doubled for 2018" that probably means 2 families does it. Why on earth would you choose to go there and prop up that government?

redshrink
4 days ago
I have been working with Egyptian refugees. I have heard their stories of torture, political and homophobic persecution, unlawful incarceration, beatings, and rape.

Like f*** would I be carrying my money to support such a vile regime waging war on its own population. But “holiday makers” could not care less for a cheap holiday in the sun, it seems. Shame on them!

minagiller
4 days ago
If only some concerned, liberal academics and activists could tell the UK people of all the human rights abuse and oppression in Egypt, and arrange boycotts, write open letters and hold demonstrations too.

But no.

They remain totally silent.

minagiller
4 days ago
I boycott Egypt because it is a country with a poor human rights record which treats women and minorities like homosexual people quite badly.

Its Amnesty report tell sus of torture, disappearances, summary executions and all sorts of oppression.

If people are happy to support such a country with their holiday expenditure then I can only assume they don't care about this state of affairs.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/mi ... ort-egypt/

Love the comments and there's even more up now....

Tourists overburdened with a conscience have a limited choice nowadays.

Switzerland??

newcastle wrote:Tourists overburdened with a conscience have a limited choice nowadays.

Switzerland??

Not if you object to corrupt banking practices and money laundering on a grand scale, are they still holding onto all the Nazi gold stolen from murdered Jews?

Horus wrote:

newcastle wrote:Tourists overburdened with a conscience have a limited choice nowadays.

Switzerland??

Not if you object to corrupt banking practices and money laundering on a grand scale, are they still holding onto all the Nazi gold stolen from murdered Jews?

Allegedly.....

I was going to suggest the Vatican City...but then again, not if you're travelling with children

Besides, there's no beaches and precious little night life.

there's no beaches and precious little night life.

What! no karaoke or tribute bands playing in St Peters Square? What a rubbish place that sounds.

The very 'fine' Thomas Cook owned by the Communist Party of China is doing much better than when it was under English management (bankrupt and insolvent) - good thing. Apparently their Executives now do work.

The notion that there is good money or good jobs in package tourism - directed to coastal options owned by people the have some of the worst moral values in the world is naive.

China, which is the largest tourist market in the world (of which Egypt has a pathetic market share) is interesting. The first overseas trip is packaged but the second by a middle class Chinese is entirely/mainly independent. Therefore the Thomas Cook strategy - which appeals to odd UK/Russian lower middle class package/fully planned insecurities - may not work in the future for the Chinese - and maybe later the Indianans - half the world. Unlike the Thomas Cook characters money is not an issue with Chinese tourists who spend about 50% more on average than US tourists - $US400-500 per day.

Unlike the Thomas Cook 'approach' the Chinese want a result rather than a mere bargain.

Only a completely foolish country with scant concern for its own people thinks that high volume, low cost, low profit, low , Thomas Cook package, local skill tourism is to be accepted. Sensible governments try to structure their tourism in ways that benefit the locals - other than crooks who have built Oasses on the coast.

There is a strange paradox in the cheap coastal mass tourism. Those up market tourists who might otherwise have gone to Egypt and have spent $US200 a day are deterred because the place looks like full of people they regard as trash - many of them are. In simple terms when you define yourself as a cheap supermarket this drives some people away. As if the 'Supreme Tourists' who manage 'everything' care about any of this.

Those creatures can't even set up flights to Egypt from China and have a marketing campaign for China based on an idiot in in their Beijing Embassy. Meanwhile the bulk of their marketing is spent on Europe and America backed by extravagant trips by Hawass to places that have no money and few outbound tourists. As with the other 7,000,000 bureaucrats in Egypt they are fools but fools with a credit caed.

No Comment!!!!

The trouble, Hafiz, is that Egypt displays classic signs of schizophrenia - split personality - when it comes to tourism. They really don't know which way to go.

Spending mega-bucks on the GEM and tarting up archaeological sites is all very well....but how many budding Joann Fletchers people come to Egypt intent on trawling museums with their ice cream devouring brats? Not many. Chinese perhaps...if they can get here.

And even the kiss-me-quick brigade lured to the sun drenched beaches of the Red Sea have a hard time in staying awake after 10pm. There's a limit to the appeal of locals/illegal foreigners, dressed up as ancient Egyptians, doing the hokey-cokey in hotel ballrooms night after night.

Funnily enough, p*ssed-up yobs and scantilly dressed, pill-popping girls have a hard time finding appropriate venues in this conservative muslim society.

Snorkelling trips amidst the the plastic-infested Red Sea coral reefs are not for everyone.

And then there's the interminable hassle. If the government's plans to levy huge fines on transgressors works, I'll eat my cat. No....that's not a typo. I don't have a hat.

The only upside I see in the surge in Thos Cook - type clientele is the employment it generates for low-earning hotel workers. But that again is a mixed blessing. A major complaint of visitors to Egypt is the "quality" of hotel accommodation and service. But then, if you pay peanuts.....

Having a hotel which is drenched in marble and glitzy chandeliers is all very well - if Louis Faroukh/Arab bordello is your thing - but having your cocktails prepared by bar staff whose skills don't go beyond a pina colada made with local spirits gets tedious after a while. And don't get me on to their housekeeping skills....

And it's not cheap - as mentioned elsewhere. You can go to the Caribbean or Thailand for less.

Who cares about the country's human rights record. They have more intractable problems to solve when it comes to tourism.