TUI Continues Positive Trend in Third Quarter of the Year

TUI AG has continued the positive performance in its core business sectors in the third quarter of the ongoing year. Turnover and earnings were improved compared to the previous year in both tourism and shipping.

Turnover in the tourism sector for the first 9 months of 2005 rose by 6.0 percent to 11.3 billion euros, while shipping turnover rose by 17.0 percent to 2.3 billion euros.

Tourism earnings for that same period improved by 8.1 percent. Shipping earnings for the first three quarters of 2005 were 3.1 percent up on the previous year.

In the third quarter of 2005 total earnings by divisions (before taxes on income and amortization of goodwill) for the TUI Group decreased by 10.2 percent to 714 million euros (previous year 795 million euros).

The tourism division continued its positive performance and reported better results in the third quarter of 2005 than in the previous year. As many as 7.79 million customers purchased tourism products of the TUI group in the third quarter.

"The two cornerstones of our Group, tourism and shipping, have proven to be stable and profitable. Despite some unexpected influences which affected the earnings performance in the first nine months, we are optimistic that we will achieve our earnings objectives in both divisions," TUI´s CEO Michael Frenzel pointed out.