Low bookings put a damper on Thomson Travel shares

Investors in the British travel group, Thomson Travel, including 150 staff at Budget Travel, are continuing to see a disappointing performance from the recently floated shares. Thomson, which owns Budget in Ireland, is preparing to drop up to 250,000 holidays next summer because of a sharp fall in bookings. Analysts are now warning that as many as 1.2 million holidays could be cut if demand falls by 10 per cent as expected in 1999.

This comes as further bad news for shareholders, sending the share price to 30 per cent below its flotation price. Thomson has blamed poor booking for 1999 combined with problems in Sweden for a drop in half-year profits from £12.2 million sterling to £5.5 million. Despite the bad news shareholders will receive a dividend of 0.75p per share.