Covid-19 has been a disaster for the travel industry. Demand for flights, cruises and hotels has plummeted because of lockdowns and travel restrictions.

It is impossible to know when bookings will recover. The potential for further travel restrictions prompted by omicron or other new variants, as well as threats including higher inflation and rising interest rates, mean that uncertainty is likely to persist for travel companies over the coming months.

Of course, disasters and uncertainty can create buying opportunities for long-term investors who are able to accept volatility in the short run. Shares in the travel firm Tui are 70pc below their pre-pandemic level and have lost 11pc in the past month alone as concerns over omicron have surfaced.

In Questor’s view, Tui is in a strong position to recover as travel restrictions abate and demand for holidays rebounds.

The company last week released full-year results that showed encouraging progress. Revenue for the fourth quarter, to Sept 30, surged by 173pc compared with the previous year as vaccines were rolled out and travel restrictions partly eased.

Although further progress may be inhibited in the short run by economic uncertainty and this new stage of the pandemic, long-term recovery in Tui’s financial performance seems likely. After all, the pandemic is unlikely to have permanently dampened our wish to travel and take holidays.

In fact, the improving outlook for the global economy – growth of 4.9pc in 2022 and 3.6pc in 2023, according to forecasts from the IMF – could support buoyant demand across the travel industry.

And while we wait for a sustained recovery, the firm appears to have sufficient financial resources to survive. It raised £940m from the sale of new shares in October, which followed the raising of £430m in January. It now has access to total funds of £3bn, while net debt has fallen from £5.5bn to £4.2bn over the past year.