German bookings up 41 percent y-o-y

The German unit of European tour operator TUI said demand for summer 2017 bookings was “significantly” above the level seen at this point last year and that Germans were once again booking their holidays earlier. “Many Germans who didn’t go on holiday last year are booking especially early this year,” Sebastian Ebel, head of TUI Germany, said in a statement yesterday. Last year saw European tourists avoid attack-hit Turkey and Egypt in favor of destinations in the western Mediterranean such as Spain, forcing tour operators and airlines to shift capacity. Greece has replaced Turkey as the second most popular destination for Germans, TUI Germany said, and summer bookings for the country are currently 41 percent above where they were a year ago. Spain, Italy, the Canary Islands and Croatia are also experiencing growth in bookings of over 10 percent, TUI Germany said. country reached 1.1 million. Hardest hit were 15- to 24-year-olds, with that age group’s jobless rate dropping to 44.2 percent from 48.8 percent in the same month a year earlier. The reading in October, based on seasonally adjusted data, was the lowest since March 2012, when unemployment had stood at similar levels. The jobless rate hit a record high of 27.9 percent in September 2013. Greece’s unemployment rate has come down from record highs but remains more than double the eurozone average of 9.8 percent in November. The Greek government expects unemployment to contract to 22.6 percent this year, based on its 2017 budget, which foresees the econ-