Thomas Cook relaunches Tunisia holidays for February 2018 – three years after beach massacre
The tour operator has started selling holidays to Tunisia again, two years after the Sousse terror attack
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Your support makes all the difference.Two years after 30 British holidaymakers were killed by a terrorist in Tunisia, one of the UK’s biggest tour operators is to start selling trips there again.
Thomas Cook, which first opened an office in Tunisia in 1902, will be offering a small programme of holidays from February 2018.
Following the massacre by a lone gunman on the beach in Sousse, the Foreign Office placed the North African nation on the no-go list – triggering an emergency evacuation.
The effect of the travel ban was to oblige tour operators to stop offering holidays there, and to invalidate the travel insurance of anyone who decided to go.
Last month Tunisia was taken off the list, though the advice still warns “terrorists are still very likely to try to carry out attacks in Tunisia”.
Thomas Cook is the first mainstream operator to respond to the lifting of the warning. From 13 February 2018, it will launch three flights a week to the country – from Gatwick, Birmingham and Manchester. It will offer package holidays in six hotels, mainly in the Hammamet area on Tunisia’s east coast, as well as flight-only deals.
For the summer programme, which begins in May, the firm will offer seven flights a week and add two more hotels to its portfolio.
At the time the ban was imposed, Thomas Cook was operating 35 flights a week.
Thomas Cook’s head of customer welfare, Carol Mackenzie, said in a blog:
“The Tunisian government has worked to improve its security and the way its police and security teams can respond to terrorist incidents. It is this work which meant that the UK Government were able to announce that they are now satisfied that British travellers can return to the country.”
Thomas Cook holidays to Tunisia will go on sale on Tuesday 22 August.
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