Long, who will soon be stepping down as joint chief executive, has been heartened by the response of customers in The Netherlands, where Arke was rebranded as Tui in October.

Belgium, France and the Nordics will follow with the UK expected to be the last source market to see the name change.

“We will systematically work though and we will leave our largest, biggest and most profitable business until last,” Long said.

“But I have to say what I’ve seen I’m very pleased with.”

“The reception in terms of customers within Holland has been very, very positive. So I think we’ve had a good start. It’s the right thing to do.”

Long said the company would likely disclose the financial impact of a ban on flights to Sharm el Sheikh in its first quarter results next year but that it would not derail its earnings forecast for 2016.

“We have got increased programmes to all the islands within the Canaries and Cape Verde,” he said

“We will give a further outline in terms of the impact [of Sharm el Sheikh] in Q1. But we’re saying that we have the ability to absorb this and still be comfortable with the guidance of at least 10% of growth in earnings.”

Tui Group is also not flying to Tunisia following the terrorist attack on a beach earlier this year. 33 of the company’s customers were killed.

Long said that Tui would wait for the green light from European governments before returning to both destinations.

Rebrands rarely go as smoothly as companies expect, so it will be interesting to see how the planned witch from Thomson to Tui goes.