Thompson to lose 2600 call-center jobs
Thompson have announced the loss of 2,600 jobs in their UK call centers after a drop in demand for telephone bookings.
Announcing extensive restructuring, the German parent company TUI said that it was cutting 3,600 staff throughout Europe but the majority of cuts would fall to the UK where the tourism and leisure business had changed the most.
TUI said that the rise of the independent traveller was responsible for the job cuts. After the rise of the low cost airline, more and more people are booking a flight and hotel online, seperately rather than buying a holiday package. At the same time TUI announced that they would be expanding their own online presence in the holiday market by opening a web portal dedicated to flight bookings.
Holidays from the UK have always been too expensive compared with the rest of Europe, in my opinion, and it looks like that gravy train is over.