Good News Britain: Summer holidays still 'sacrosanct' I really believe that the summer holiday is sacrosanct to our customers. I've often said that people prefer to give up day-to-day luxuries so that they can go on their summer holiday. This has been borne out over the past few years, even in these austere times. Proof of this is that the global tourism market is growing. It's growing at an average of 4pc every year despite issues like SARS and the financial crisis. We are growing with it. The total revenue across the global market was approximately £2 trillion in 2011. It's a huge market and there is plenty of room to keep growing. You can't stand still. You need to be flexible and innovative and anticipate your customers' needs. We put them at the heart of everything we do. We have market-leading brands both in mainstream and tailor-made. Thomson, for example, has been the market leader for more than 30 years. We offer innovative products specifically designed for what our customers want from a holiday in today's world. It's not just about putting a holiday together which is the traditional "package holiday," anyone can do that with an internet connection. It's about understanding your customers and designing holidays to suit them, from beginning to end, and then it's about being able to offer this at incredible value. We call this "modern mainstream." We defined it, have invested in it and lead the way. It's a key reason why we're outperforming the market and why customers are booking with us. We recognise that customers have differing requirements and aside of modern mainstream and specialist experiences we have a big online accommodation offering, with both B2B [business to business] and B2C [business to consumer] brands.This market is growing strongly and our accommodation and destinations sector is very well placed in this segment. We have great products but equally important are the colleagues in our group. We employ some 20,000 in the UK and 53,000 across the group. It's a fantastic team, both customer facing and operationally. At the end of the day it's about the right products and the right people, that's what makes the difference to our customers. Peter Long is chief executive of TUI Travel