Holiday giant with branch in Burnley announces closure of 166 high street stores

The UK's biggest tour operator has said the decision was made following changes in customer behaviour as a result of the pandemic.

In a statement the company described Covid 19 as the 'greatest crisis' the travel industry has ever faced.

Tui closed all its branches at the start of the pandemic in March. Eighteen stores across the country were re-opened on July 6th but the doors of the Burnley shop in The Mall remained closed.

A spokesman for Tui said today: "We won’t be naming any potential store closures during the consultation period but I can confirm that none of the stores that are currently open are at risk of closure."

Tui said that it would seek to move 70 per cent of the 900 staff affected by the closures to homeworking sales and services roles, and it would aim to relocate other employees in the remaining high street stores.

It announced it would cut 8,000 roles worldwide after posting losses of £747M in 2020 compared to £255M in the same period last year.

The announcement comes after Tui cancelled all flights to Spain up to and including August 9th after the government struck the country off the UK's list of safe destinations and re-imposed a 14-day quarantine period on arrivals last week.

In a statement released today, Tui's UK and Ireland managing director Andrew Flintham said: 'We want to be in the best position to provide excellent customer service, whether it's in a high street store, over the telephone or online, and will continue to put the customer at the heart of what we do.