Tui Travel, the largest tour operator in Europe, has announced that renewed interest in the travel market has forced them to schedule more holidays for the summer, with the resulting financial windfall hopefully signaling an end to the economic crisis which has plagued operators for the past year and a half.

Established in 2007 by the collaboration of British group First Choice and TUI AG’s, Tui Travel claimed that the first improvements for months in operating profit/ loss figures should have the industry eagerly watching the next few months. The biggest growth region geographically was Scandinavia, where summer bookings have risen a massive 40 percent on the back of a resurgent cruise industry and budget air carrier activity. The United Kingdom has seen a six percent rise in bookings to date for this summer.

The group’s CEO, Peter Long, reasoned that the ongoing improvements in customer demand for bookings have meant that the company was increasingly confident that they had seen the worst of the recession. The recent upsurge in consumer interest has meant that there is a clear case of people wanting to take a holiday, something which has been sorely missing from the travel industry in recent times.

It is also thought that yet another miserable winter in the UK has led many to plan their trips abroad early and make the most of the slowly readjusting economy. Long pointed to British consumer sentiment as evidence of this, given that it rose for the first time in months in the past month. This rise echoed similar improvements across the European zone in both December and January.