TUI Expecting Rhodes Fires to Cost Around €25 Million

The Old Town of Rhodes.

German leisure travel operator TUI said it was on track to achieving its full-year targets despite the fires on Rhodes last month, expected to cost the company approximately 25 million euros, it said in the release of its third-quarter report on Wednesday.

The fires on Rhodes that burned for 10 days forced TUI to evacuate some 8,000 customers from island hotels with costs for repatriation flights, compensation, and lost business set to reach around 25 million euros, the travel operator said.

TUI CEO Sebastian Ebel and the TUI team on Rhodes. Photo source: TUI Group.

“The measures taken on Rhodes have a financial impact that will be reflected in the results for the full year. There will be costs for cancellations and loss of business, customer compensation and repatriation flights – the group expects these to be around 25 million euros,” the company said.

Rhodes represents approximately 5 percent of TUI Group’s summer program, it said, adding that 80 percent of its customers spend their holidays in the northern part of Rhodes, “which was not affected at any time by the fires”.

“With the development of a wider and year-round range of products and services already underway, TUI will reduce the impact of similar events to a greater extent in the future,” it added.

CEO: It will be a good full year for TUI

Despite that however, TUI CEO Sebastian Ebel said he expects summer 2023 to go “very well” and demand for holidays to remain “high”.

“Overall it will be a very good travel summer and a good year for TUI in 2023,” he said.

Source: TUI

Indicative of the company’s performance so far this year, more than 5.5 million people traveled with TUI from April to June, up from 5.1 million in 2022. The company added that bookings for the summer holiday season were 6 percent higher year-on-year and prices 7 percent on average. Underlying pre-tax profits came to 169.4 million euros from April to June.