Read my lips

Trying to understand Peter Long's gobbledygook at TUI today.

Peter says “Pricing is strong as we continue to recover our cost input inflation, while consumer demand continues to improve despite the economic conditions as our consumers continue to seek differentiated experiences with trustworthy brands that provide excellent value for money.”

In actual fact TUI's bookings to non-euro zone areas are continuing to rise. Their bookings in the last month for Turkey are up by eight per cent, Egypt by 18% and all inclusive holidays by 13%.

So what he's really saying is this.

"We've managed to avoid discounting our holidays by reducing our capacity and exposure on some destinations and maintaining capacities in others. Despite significant rises in costs due to the strength of the euro, we decided not to pass these on to the consumer and taken some of this on the chin. Since the euro is so strong we have seen our customers move away from their traditional holiday desitinations and look for desitinations outside the eurozone. The major winners in this are Turkey and Egypt"

On a positive note, a statement from TUI on the quarterly results to December 31, 2008, said that for the summer there has been stronger consumer demand in the past four weeks.

Maybe, just maybe, people are becoming a little less pessimistic about the future.

Let's hope so.