TUI axes 2,600 UK jobs

Marketers are on alert after holiday group TUI, which owns the Thomson brand, announced it was axing 2,600 jobs in the UK.

The company is not saying what departments will be affected by the job cuts, which will be implemented over the next two years, but it is likely the redundancies will be across the whole business.

Thomson’s top marketer is David Burling, who was handed responsibility for marketing after marketing director Miles Morgan left the company earlier this year following a management restructure. The company’s head of marketing is Andrew Rayner.

TUI says in a statement: “As a consequence of the evolving mix of business, an increasing proportion of UK sales are now transacted online with the Web accounting for nearly half of total sales. In response, TUI UK has been rebalancing its distribution capacity, which over the last two years has led to a reduction in shops and call centres. Continuing this process is expected to deliver further headcount savings.”

Thomson handed its £15m advertising account to Krow last month.