TUI which owns Britannia Airways today posted an increased first quarter perfromance from the same period in 2004, quoting increases in all European sectors.

German tourism group TUI, which owns Thomson holidays and Britannia Airways announced a successful start to the new financial year with the publication of their first quarter results today. Europe’s leading tourism group achieved an increase in turnover and improved earnings by divisions year-on-year, the company said today. 

In the first quarter of 2005, the tourism division performed better than in the previous year. 3.78 million customers chose the tourism products of the TUI Group, according to TUI’s results released today.  Earnings by the division were negative due to the seasonal nature of the business but improved by 6.3 per cent to – €192 million (previous year: - €205 million). Turnover climbed by 6.7 per cent to €2.52 billion.

The strongest growth was recorded by the Central Europe sector (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and airlines Hapag-Lloyd Flug and Hapag-Lloyd Express). Customer numbers climbed to a total of 1.73 million, following 1.50 million in the previous year’s comparative period due to the inclusion of the seat-only business of Hapag-Lloyd Express.

Central European turnover increased by 11.8 per cent to €0.94 billion (previous year: €0.84 billion). This growth mainly resulted from an increase in turnover in Germany, where the previous year’s positive trend in the market for holiday tours consolidated. Earnings of the sector improved by 14.9 per cent to – 86 million euros primarily due to good tour operator business. Hapag-Lloyd Express also improved its quarterly earnings.

The Northern Europe sector which includes Ireland, the UK, Nordic countries, and the airlines Britannia Airways UK, Britannia Airways Nordic and Thomsonfly reported an overall satisfactory trend in the first quarter of 2005. The total number of customers stood at 1.18 million, compared with 1.09 million in the previous year.

Turnover grew by 5.5 per cent to €0.90 billion. This was largely due to the positive trend in the tour operator business in the UK, which more than compensated for the dip in turnover in the Nordic countries in the wake of the tsunamis in Asia.

In Ireland, turnover matched the previous year’s level.

Earnings by the sector dropped from – € 98 million  in the previous year to – €106 million which, however, was due to the first-time inclusion of the low-cost carrier Thomsonfly in the sector’s figures. Excluding Thomsonfly, earnings in the UK and the Nordic countries developed positively and exceeded the previous year’s levels in both regions.

The Western Europe sector (France, Netherlands, Belgium, and the airlines Corsair and TUI Airlines Belgium) achieved a 13.1 per cent increase in customer numbers to 0.87 million. Turnover grew by 4.7 per cent to €0.53 billion . This was mainly due to the increase in turnover in source markets France and Belgium.

Earnings by the sector dropped to – €19 million from €11 million in the previous year, since the improvements in the Netherlands did not fully offset the decline in France, and figures for Belgium comprised the seasonally negative flight operations for the first time in the first quarter of 2005.

The business travel and IT services companies achieved turnover of €61 million in the first quarter of 2005, matching the previous year’s level. Earnings totalled €4 million , following the 2004 total of  €3 million.