Articles tagged “tui”

Everyone is looking for their competitive advantage in the post-Covid crisis landscape. TUI may find its own in the very thing it's been offering for years: end-to-end packaged tours, with full control over the experience.

GetYourGuide's Johannes Reck is underplaying the Google threat in tours and activities. Sure, Google has much larger priorities, but how much will it cost to build the GetYourGuide brand with Google controlling the airspace?

TUI/Musement's new strategic partnership with Booking.com has the potential to reshuffle the powers that be in tours and activities, especially in Europe. But TUI doesn't have a stellar track record in online offerings, and much of the promise will depend on its execution.

The tour operator has taken major steps to lower its cost base. Financially, it's prepared for the next few months, but that's counting on tourists flooding back this summer.

One of Warren Buffett's best known bits of investment advice is: "Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.” The fundamentals for TUI still look good, so Hamed El Chiaty might have just struck a bargain deal for himself.

Whether building tours and activities or vacation rentals, acquiring companies soon find out that this stuff isn't as easy as it looked. From confidential internal documents obtained by Skift, it's clear Booking.com found out that scaling experiences on its own wouldn't be a cakewalk, and it's turning to Musement to kick off a preferred partnership strategy instead.

This seems like a sensible approach from TUI. At the moment, there are just too many unknowns, but it does seem like things will get worse before they get better.

TUI CEO Fritz Joussen sounded much more upbeat than he did last December. While the Max grounding continues to cause problems for the company, holiday bookings for summer 2020 have grown. For now, it thinks it has the edge on its remaining competitors.

This seems like a win-win for TUI Group. It gets an established partner to help grow its luxury and expedition cruise line — while also keeping a share of the business — and at the same time it gets the cash to help pursue its digital strategy.

The absence of Thomas Cook has left a big gap to fill in a number of European markets. The early signs in the key January booking period point to a pretty good year for tour operators. Although as we know from experience, that can quickly change.