Travel firm Tui cruising nicely

Surging popularity for cruise holidays has helped boost half-year earnings at travel giant Tui as families and young people take to the seas.

Chief executive Fritz Joussen hailed an “excellent” market outlook for cruises – once the preserve of older travellers, but now becoming the trip of choice for younger holidaymakers as well.

The group is planning to further expand its cruise offering, with its board giving the green light to build another ship for its Hapag-lloyd brand.

It comes after a solid first half for the cruises business, with a 24 per cent jump in underlying earnings to €93 million (£81.4m) for the six months to the end of March.

The performance helped the wider business get off to a strong start for the financial year, with a 26 per cent improvement in its seasonal underlying loss to €158.6m in the half-year, or a 29.8 per cent improvement with currency effects stripped out, on revenues up 7.2 per cent.

Joussen said the cruise ship market has “great future potential”, with German and European holidaymakers “beginning to embrace this way to travel”.

He added: “Due to demographic change, traditional target groups are growing. At the same time, sea voyages are becoming increasingly popular among families and younger people.

“The convergence of these two very promising trends will further accelerate growth over the next five to ten years. And we are only at the beginning of this trend.”

The results showed Tui’s seasonal pre-tax loss for the first half – covering the traditionally quieter winter months – narrowed to €247.2m from €310.8m. Tui said it was seeing a “very good trading performance” for summer 2018.