Thomas Cook is to axe thousands of jobs across Europe and close a number of travel agencies after reporting a 12 per cent fall in winter bookings.

There was no breakdown of how many jobs will go in the UK, where voluntary redundancy schemes and cuts in working hours had already been announced before the September terrorist attacks.

The company said in a statement from Germany that the number of jobs across the group would be cut by ten per cent, planned capital expenditure would be reduced by 50 per cent, and 100 travel agencies would be closed.

About 30,000 people are employed by Thomas Cook across Europe in its operations in the UK, Belgium, Germany, France, Poland and the Netherlands.

More than 2,600 of those jobs are expected to go.

Alan Stewart, chief executive of Thomas Cook UK, said: "It's very unfortunate that we are having to look at cost reduction measures across the group, but very necessary given the trading conditions."

Mr Stewart said the UK package holiday market was "buoyant" and more people were travelling overseas at present than at the same time last year. But customers were not committing themselves to further trips until the position was clearer.

A spokesman for Thomas Cook in the UK indicated that customers were waiting to see how the global recession affected Britain before booking holidays for next year. He said: "With recent redundancy announcements by major companies across the UK, people are waiting to see if their jobs are safe before booking holidays for next summer.

"Fears of redundancy are putting people off, not fears of further terrorist attacks following September's events."

Thomas Cook chairman Stefan Pichler said new bookings across the group for the winter season were down by 12 per cent on last year.

"At present we have no indication that this situation will change in the short term and our responsibility to our company and our employees leads us to implement certain measures to safeguard our financial position and secure our continued success.