TUI Will Cut Budgets, Freeze Hiring to Deal With Coronavirus Spread

European travel giant TUI Group has outlined a series of measures it intends to take to cope with the potential disruption to its holiday business from the coronavirus outbreak.

The Hanover-headquartered company said it had so far only seen a “marginal effect” on its operations following a strong start to the year. Nevertheless with the outbreak spreading into Europe, the company said it was working through a number of priorities.

These include keeping control of costs through budget cuts, hiring freezes, and the postponement of non-critical projects.

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“Given that the situation is still evolving, it is not yet possible to estimate the potential financial impact across our business of the current COVID-19 [coronavirus] development. We are continuously monitoring the situation very closely and actively evaluating the implications for our business,” the company said.

The outbreak of the disease is hitting travel and tourism companies hard with people putting off their travel plans. Airlines, which started off by pulling routes from China, are now pulling their flights to other areas, especially those that have seen significant numbers of cases such as northern Italy.