TUI AG, Europe´s largest travel company, plans almost to double its earnings from tourism in the next three years by cutting costs, opening hotels and expanding its Hapag-Lloyd Express and Thomsonfly low-cost airlines. Pretax profit before goodwill amortization at the main tourism business will climb to about 700 million euros ($903 million) by 2008 from 362 million euros last year, Chief Executive Officer Michael Frenzel told shareholders today in Hanover, Germany, where TUI is based.

Mexico´s Tourism Secretary Rodolfo Elizondo Torres urged state industry officials to join hands in order to get far more budget cash from the nation´s Congress that will be eventually be funneled into new investments, job creation and improvement of living standards for residents near tourist resorts. Mr. Torres believes the nation as a whole needs to pay more heed to the local hospitality industry and leverage that awareness into more budget funds for the sector.

With the help of the nation´s travel industry, the Panamanian economy climbed 9 percent in the first quarter of 2005, compared to the same period of time a year ago, President Martin Torrijos said this week. However, the results are drawing fire from some critics who rush to point out that poor job creation and the soaring prices of staples and commodities are staining the government´s prospects.

Hotel fares are sloughing as much as 40 percent off all across the country in an effort to build a fire under travel during the now fledgling off-peak season, said Jorge Hernandez Delgado, chairman of the Mexican Association of Travel Agencies. Mr. Delgado explained most travel agencies see sales of packages drop dramatically during the off-peak season, so there´s no better time to slash hotel fares and make offer far more luring for foreign visitors.

Argentina´s airlines made a killing last year with $729.2 million worth of profits, up 34 percent from 2003, according to figures published by the local press this week. In addition to that, the Chamber of Argentine Airlines indicated that all carriers sold 1.5 million plane tickets combined in 2004, up 17.3 percent from the previous year.

The volume of hard currency grabbed by the Brazilian tourist industry wound up the first quarter of the ongoing year with over a billion dollars worth of revenues, up 14.7 percent from the three months of 2004, a new record high for that time of year. Over the last two years, Brazilian tourism has backpedaled a slumping trend and has now begun to amass a $568 million surplus, according to a report issued by industry experts.