Turkey and Egypt are attracting more British holiday bookings, as prices in destinations seen as safer continue to increase. Both countries have seen a slump in visitor numbers due to a series of terror attacks, together with the closure to UK airlines of the main Egyptian resort airport, Sharm el Sheikh. But Peter Fankhauser, Chief Executive of Thomas Cook, said demand had picked up “as customers look for quality and value”. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Both destinations are wonderful countries, with great hotels, great beaches, nice people, and it’s really good value.

“People want to go back. We are not a security company; as long as we have the advice of the Foreign Office that we can fly to Egypt and Turkey, we offer a great product.”

Many holidaymakers have switched from the eastern Mediterranean to destinations perceived as “safe”, notably Spain.

Sales to Spain were unchanged, with “a very competitive trading environment” — due to the sheer number of aircraft seats from the UK to Spanish airports. Average selling prices for seat-only tickets are down 3 per cent, while holiday prices overall have risen by 7 per cent.

“Spanish hoteliers are taking advantage a bit of the increased demand, and prices went up because we have not enough beds for all the demand,” said Mr Fankhauser. He predicted “A 5 to 10 per cent price increase we’ll have for sure in Spain” for summer 2018.

Thomas Cook has faced criticism from some holidaymakers caught up in the extreme weather in the Caribbean and Florida earlier this month, in particular travellers who were in Cuba as Hurricane Irma approached and who say Thomas Cook was slow in responding.

But Mr Fankhauser said: “I am proud of how fast we acted in the wake of Irma to support our customers, and offer them alternative destinations for their winter sun.” (Simon Calder / independent.co.uk)

Rüstem Aslan, Troy’s chief archaeologist, grows more animated as he enters the fenced-off area just beyond the southern gate of the ancient city’s ruins. To him it offers tantalising clues that may add to the evidence that this was the scene of the war detailed in Homer’s epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. “Priam, Achilles, Hector: [whether] they lived and died here, we cannot prove that 100%,” said the affable Aslan, who started working at the site as a student in 1988. “But if you work inside for 30 years, night and day, winter or summer, surrounded by this landscape, you can feel it. You start to believe.”

Arriving in Philadelphia with few possessions and little money, Todd Carmichael started walking the city with business partner JP Iberti to scope out storefronts. In short order, they took on a 50-year lease in a bustling downtown neighborhood, renovated the space themselves and, in May 1994, opened the first La Colombe café. La Colombe Coffee Roasters, with 750 employees, now runs 26 cafés in five cities, distributes its coffee to some 3,500 restaurants, hotels, cafés and retailers and operates an online store. The company says revenue is approaching $100 million. Following a 2015 capital infusion from Chobani LLC Chairman and CEO Hamdi Ulukaya, the company early this year introduced its canned, chilled Draft Latte line nationally, quickly becoming a force in the U.S. ready-to-drink coffee category.

In recent reports, Turkish Airlines revealed that the company is planning to acquire 40 of Boeing (NYSE:BA)'s 787-9 Dreamliners. This has been a long-awaited arrangement in which indicates that the carrier has bounced back after a terrorist attack on its Istanbul headquarters in the preceding year. Once it gets done, the deal is estimated at a value of US$11 billion before the expected concessions for massive aircraft procurements. According to the pact on Thursday in a brief signing ceremony in New York, such decision sprouted from years of market research. Also, as the airline designed its expansion, negotiations for wide-body planes were done.