Tui Group, the multinational travel company owning travel agencies, hotels, airlines, cruise ships and retail stores, has announced it’s set to close 166 of its UK and Ireland high street stores.

The news comes as a direct result of changes in customer behaviour due to the coronavirus pandemic, the greatest crisis the travel industry has ever faced.

Tui is currently working on developing a new homeworking sales and service team to continue servicing its customers, with the group seeking to reduce its overhead costs by 30 per cent globally.

According to the company, UK jobs will be protected by closing third party overseas customer service centres. However, 8,000 roles could be impacted by the new move.

Due to changes in customer behaviour and the growth of online bookings, Tui is looking to move 70 per cent of the 900 impacted roles in the UK into a new homeworking sales and service team.

The brand also aims to relocate retail advisers to vacancies across the remaining high street stores to ‘preserve expertise’ and ‘continue to offer great service to its customers’.

Impacted stores have been selected due to market data, consumer trends and prediction of retail travel. The closures will leave 350 stores in the retail network.

Tui UK and Ireland managing director, Andrew Flintham, said: “We want to be in the best position to provide excellent customer service, whether it’s in a high street store, over the telephone or online, and will continue to put the customer at the heart of what we do.

“It is therefore imperative that we make these difficult cost decisions, look after our colleagues during such unprecedented uncertainty and also offer a modern customer service.

“Customer behaviours have already changed in recent years, with 70% of all Tui UK bookings taking place online. We believe Covid-19 has only accelerated this change in purchasing habits, with people looking to buy online or wishing to speak with travel experts from the comfort of their own home.

“We have world-class travel advisors at TUI, so we hope many of them will become homeworkers and continue to offer the personalised service we know our customers value.”

Tui UK and Ireland currently employs 10,000 people and serves over six million customers each year. Tui owns Marella Cruises and has just launched its own river cruise line, Tui River Cruises.

Just last month, Tui announced the partial restart of its summer 2020 programme.