Thomas Cook seeing no evidence of trading down

LONDON (Reuters) - Thomas Cook (TCG.L), Europe's second-biggest travel operator, is seeing no evidence of consumers cutting back on holidays or trading down, Chief Executive Manny Fontenla-Novoa told reporters.

Despite an economic slowdown, the group, created last year from the tie-up of German retailer Arcandor's (AROG.DE) travel unit and MyTravel, said current trading has been strong in summer 2008 and bookings for winter 2008/9 and summer 2009 are ahead of last year.

"When it comes to the main holiday, it's a 'must have' item for consumers. In our experience, people will cut back on all sorts of other things before they cut back on their holiday.

"In the last six weeks of trading, our average price has gone up by 9 percent. Our all-inclusive holidays and our 4 and 5 star holidays are both up on last year by 10 percent and 13 percent respectively," Fontenla-Novoa said.

He added that bookings to non-euro currency destinations such as Turkey and Egypt are proving "far more popular" for 2008/9 as the strength of the euro affects booking patterns.

Winter bookings to Egypt are 20 percent up year-on-year, with Turkey bookings up 13 percent.

"There is an increased demand for non-euro destinations. For us, that's good news because they are destinations where we have significant capacity and market leadership," Fontenla-Novoa said.

(Reporting by Matthew Scuffham, Editing by Mark Potter)