Consumer sentiment

Our customers continue to look forward to their annual holiday. They continue to want to travel abroad, experience new countries, cultures and sunnier climates. We are seeing the following customer trends:

Brand strength

Customers are loyal to reputable, established, high-quality brands ('power brands') as they seek to de-risk their holidays and book with a tour operator that gives full financial protection. We have some of the most recognised and highly trusted brands in the industry. See Distribution & Brands.

Product innovation and development

Customers continue to be more discerning in their holiday decisions, wanting differentiated products and value for money. We are developing a portfolio of exclusive products that no competitor can match or replicate and which is tailored to include additional services and facilities that our customers want on their holiday. For further information on differentiated products see Product & Content.

We have seen a trend towards all inclusive packages due to customers seeking financial certainty and wanting to know exactly what their holiday is going to cost. In the UK, we have experienced a 33% increase in demand and in Germany a 50% increase in 2009 versus 2008.

The flexibility of our travel products has also become a key customer requirement with an increase in demand for 10 or 11-night holidays, wider choices of departure dates and flights from regional airports.

Our customers care about the environment and expect a quality tour operator to be addressing these issues on their behalf. See Sustainable Development. In the largest mainstream markets, Germany and the UK, we have launched green brochures featuring only holidays that meet the highest social and environmental criteria.

We continue to listen to our customers by creating new holiday experiences to meet and beat their expectations.

Destinations

A number of non-EU countries including Egypt and Turkey continued to grow strongly in popularity in 2008/2009. The number of our customers travelling to the Eurozone has decreased but these destinations including the Balearics, mainland Spain, Portugal and Greece still remain our top short haul destinations. For long haul destinations the Dominican Republic, Thailand and the United States continually provide resorts that are popular and value for money. Despite the impact of swine flu, Mexico has recovered well following investments and incentives by the local Government to attract tourists back to the resorts. New destinations introduced in 2009 included Kenya and Canada.