In winter 2023/24, holidays on the Canary Islands, Thailand and Egypt seem to be in particularly high demand. The tour operator Tui Austria has announced that customers not only book significantly earlier, but also choose the aforementioned destinations particularly often.

This would affect pretty much all segments – from budget to luxury travel. This year, after a break of several years, the tour operator also has charter flights to the Cape Verde island of Sal in its portfolio again. These are offered non-stop from Vienna-Schwechat. The first flight is scheduled to take place on December 22, 2023, according to Tui Austria. The operational implementation is carried out by Smartwings on the Friday of each traffic day.

“The focus this winter is on Egypt, Cape Verde and the Canary Islands, especially Gran Canaria,” says Gottfried Math, Managing Director of Tui Austria. Accordingly, TUI has increased the number of flight connections to the Canary Islands and even increased them by 40 percent to Hurghada and Marsa Alam. “We expect continued very strong growth in Egypt, but also a strong comeback from Thailand and consistently high numbers in the Maldives.” From December there will be a fifth weekly connection from Vienna to Male with Austrian Airlines for Tui guests. The Turkish Riviera has increasingly established itself as a winter destination in recent years. The tour operator responded to this and also expanded the flight offer to Antalya with three additional connections.

On short and medium-haul routes, demand at Tui Austria is currently distributed according to the following ranking:

1. Hurghada
2. Tenerife
3. Gran Canaria
4. Cape Verde
5. Marsa Alam
6. Fuerteventura
7. Antalya
8. Lanzarote
9. Mallorca
10. Larnaca

In the area of ​​long-distance travel, Tui Austria is currently recording a particularly high number of bookings towards Thailand. In second place are the Maldives, which are expected to continue to have consistently high demand. The United Arab Emirates is on the rise, with Dubai leading the way. Qatar is new to the portfolio: The destination offers holidays between the skyline and the beach with around 100 hotels. Mexico has proven to be a popular destination. The USA is also recording good growth and demand for Zanzibar continues to grow.

On long-distance routes, the Tui ranking currently looks like this:

1. Thailand
2. Maldives
3. UAE
4. Mexico
5. USA
6. Tanzania
7. Dominican Republic
8. Mauritius
9. Seychelles
10. Sri Lanka