'Shameless' travel companies tout cheap Tunisia trips despite government warnings

Thomson and Thomas Cook are offering discounts of up to 40 per cent worth hundreds of pounds for holidays to Port El Kantaoui and around the Sousse region where 30 Britons, including three members of the same Black Country family, were shot to death during last summer's beach attack.

Bookings are being taken despite Foreign Office advice to tourists not to travel to those regions.

A state of emergency in Tunisia has been extended for two months until February 21, 2016 with further attacks described as 'highly likely'.

• 'Think about my family before booking': Grieving mother's warning on cheap Tunisia trips

South Staffordshire MP Gavin Williamson said: "It is both shocking and shameful that holiday operators are pre-empting the Foreign Office's advice and taking bookings to Tunisia.

"The Foreign Office is clear that it is not safe to travel to Tunisia and so it is wrong for travel companies to be taking customers' money when they can't possibly know whether they will be able to fulfil that booking or not.

"It still concerns me that this is going on and that customers are potentially being lured in by low prices and big discounts.

"People who book their holidays cannot be expected to possess all the information about their safety.

"It seems to me to be entirely inappropriate that these holidays should be aggressively marketed despite there being no prospect of the travel advice being changed any time soon."

Thomas Cook and Thomson are offering holidays to Tunisia from May 1. Package holidays have been cancelled to the region since August after the attack in June by Islamic State terrorist by Seifeddine Rezgui.

Among the dead were three members of the same Black Country family. Walsall fans Joel Richards, aged 19, from Wednesbury, his uncle Adrian Evans, 49, who worked at Sandwell Council, from Bilston, and his 78-year-old father Pat Evans. Joel's younger brother Owen, 16, was also on the boys' holiday and survived the horror.

Sue Davey, originally from West Bromwich was also killed, and former Black Country solicitor Sally Adey from Albrighton was killed in a separate attack in the capital Tunis.

The deals include hundreds of pounds off holidays in the coming months at resorts near Sousse, where 30 Britons were killed in June, and to the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, from where a jet took off and blew up in October killing the 224 mainly-Russian holidaymakers on board.

The Foreign Office says it does not believe there is 'adequate protection for British tourists in Tunisia'. Thomas Cook is promoting a holiday at the Kanta Resort, at Port el Kantaoui, along the same stretch as the June attack site for just £239 per person half board – a saving of 40 per cent.

It is a similar picture in Sharm el Sheikh, where First Choice is currently selling a week at the four-star Coral Sea Water World for £576 per person all inclusive, for a May 2016 departure.

The Foreign Office does not at present advise against travel to Sharm el Sheikh, but since the downing of the Russian plane, has advised against using the airport.

It says there is a high threat from terrorism in Egypt, adding 'we believe that terrorists continue to plan attacks' and that those targeting foreigners 'can't be ruled out'.

The Tunisian government has extended the state of emergency it imposed last month until February 2016.

A Thomas Cook spokeswoman said: "The safety of all our customers is absolute priority at Thomas Cook, and we take our duty of care extremely seriously."

A Thomson spokeswoman said: "As a result of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office continuing to advise against all but essential travel to Tunisia and as there is no clear timetable for when its advice will change, we have extended the cancellation of all our outbound flights to Tunisia up to and including Saturday April 30, 2016."