Question 5
Peter Long
Chief Executive TUI Travel PLC
- Introduction
- 1. What are the highlights of this year for you?
- 2. How are the different markets responding to the current economic climate?
- 3. What steps have you taken to further improve the Group's business performance?
- 4. How will your strategy and business model develop over the next couple of years?
- 5. How do you see the leisure travel market developing in the future?
- 6. What are the challenges TUI Travel is facing?
How do you see the leisure travel market developing in the future?
Travel and tourism is the world's largest industry and has grown and changed rapidly over the last 30 years. In 1979 there were 270 million international tourist arrivals, this has risen to nearly a billion today and the prediction for 2020 is 1.6 billion.
The mainstream tour operators opened customers' eyes to safe travel beyond one's own country and people are more adventurous today. It started with Spain, but now customers are more confident and will happily go to destinations like Egypt, Turkey, the Dominican Republic and Mexico. It's not only about a sun and beach holiday, many of our Group's customers want to go on experiential holidays like sailing, trekking in the Himalayas, safaris or Polar expedition cruising and these will continue to become even more popular.
The new generation of aircraft, like the Boeing 787, will allow our customers to fly even further afield to new destinations in aircraft that are more fuel efficient, offer greater comfort and are less damaging to the environment than today's aircraft.
We are in a constantly changing industry and if we stand still we will be left behind. We put our customers at the heart of everything we do and not only deliver what they want today but continue to innovate in order to deliver what they will want tomorrow.