Growth in Greek getaways spurs surge in revenues for Peterborough's Thomas Cook

The tour operator, based in Lynch Wood, says the rise in demand for a Greek getaway has helped raise revenues for six months to the end of March by three per cent to £2,994 million. Pre-tax losses widened by £14 million to £314 million.

The company says its summer 2017 programme is 61 per cent sold.

Bookings for the group are up 12 per cent compared to this time last year, with stronger demand for most destinations, especially Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Croatia.

Revenues for holidays in Greece rose by 36 per cent - the best performance of all destinations.

Peter Fankhauser, chief executive, said: “As we look ahead to the key summer season, we are seeing strong customer demand across most of our markets.

“Greece continues to be the standout destination for summer 17.”

He added: “Thomas Cook has delivered a good performance in the first six months.

“Importantly, the actions we’ve taken to improve our holiday offering, managing our portfolio of hotels more tightly for quality, are delivering good results.

“Our customer satisfaction score increased by eight points compared with the same time last year.

Mr Fankhauser added: “I am confident we can increase this further, with the roll out of our successful 24-hour hotel satisfaction promise to 80 per cent of customers in our core sun and beach hotels this summer, and other exciting new initiatives in the pipeline.”

Thomas Cook’s UK and Ireland business reported a loss of £114 million for the period - an improvment on a £128 million loss for the same period last year.

The company also said the preference of UK customers to book online had helped achieve efficiency savings of £10 million, allowing the firm to “selectively refine our retail store network”.