TUI Group

Foundation and early years

The origins of the company lie in the industrial and transportation company Preussag AG, which was originally formed as a German mining company. It was incorporated on 9 October 1923, as Preußische Bergwerks- und Hütten-Aktiengesellschaft ('Prussian Mine and Foundry Company'). In 1927, it was merged with the Ruhr coal company, Hibernia AG, and electricity utility to become the Vereinigte Elektrizitäts und Bergwerks AG (VEBA AG, 'United Electrical and Mining Company').

While Preussag's roots were industrial, a parallel tourism lineage that predates the group's 1968 consolidation can be traced to early post-war package travel between Germany and Mallorca. In 1953, commercial relations began between the travel agency Dr Tigges (one of the forerunners of TUI) and the Riu family's hotel company, founded by Luis Riu Bertrán, offering vacation packages for German tourists to the beaches of Mallorca. The following year, Dr Tigges agreed to send organised German holidaymakers to the family's newly acquired Hotel Riu San Francisco in Playa de Palma, marking the start of RIU's longstanding cooperation with German tour operators.

After the sale of Salzgitter AG and purchase of Hapag-Lloyd AG (the navigation and logistics company) in 1997, Preussag AG became a global enterprise in the service and leisure industry. At that time, Hapag-Lloyd held a 30% interest in the tourism conglomerate TUI (founded 1968), increased to 100% by 1999. In addition, the company acquired 25% of Thomas Cook shares in 1997, which it doubled the following year. On 2 February 1999, the Carlson Leisure Group merged with Thomas Cook into a holding company owned by the German bank Westdeutsche Landesbank, Carlson Inc and Preussag. However, in mid 2000, Preussag acquired Thomas Cook's rival Thomson Travel and was forced to sell its majority 50.1% stake in Thomas Cook by regulatory authorities. In 2002, Preussag renamed itself TUI AG.

TUI announced a merger of its travel division with the British tour operator First Choice in March 2007, which was approved by the European Commission on 4 June 2007, on the condition that the merged company sell Budget Travel in Ireland. TUI held a 55% stake in the new company, TUI Travel plc, which began operations in September 2007.

In April 2008, Alexey Mordashov, who purchased his first shares in TUI Travel in autumn 2007, purchased additional TUI Travel shares under S-Group in order to expand TUI Travel into Eastern Europe and Russia.

Its logistics activities, concentrated in the shipping sector, were kept separate and bundled within Hapag-Lloyd AG. A majority stake in Hapag-Lloyd was sold to the Albert Ballin consortium of investors in March 2009, and a further stake was sold to Ballin in February 2012, as TUI worked to exit from the shipping business and to optimize its tourism business with expansion in Russia, China and India under Michael Frenzel. Prior to August 2010, John Fredriksen held the largest Norwegian privately held stake in TUI Travel and had a significant influence upon TUI Travel's direction and strategy. As Alexey Mordashov through his S-Group Travel Holding increased his stake in TUI Travel to a stake larger than Fredriksen's stake, the shipping business had to be sold.

In June 2014, the company announced it would fully merge with TUI Travel to create a united group with a value of USD 9.7 billion. The merger was completed on 17 December 2014 and the combined business began trading on the Frankfurt and London stock exchanges. Prior to this merger, Alexey Mordashov, the largest private shareholder in TUI Travel, held a blocking stake in TUI Travel through his S-Group. After the merger, Mordashov's stake was reduced to less than a blocking stake of 25%. On 12 December 2016, Mordashov increased his stake in TUI Group from 18% to more than 20%. In October 2018, his 24.9% stake was the largest privately held stake in TUI Group. In June 2019, Mordashov transferred 65% of his stake to the KN-Holding, owned by his sons Kirill and Nikita Mordashov. TUI stated in a statement that they "welcomed the second generation of the family amongst its shareholders".

Berge & Meer and Boomerang Reisen as well as Atraveo were sold to the holding company GENUI in 2019. At the end of 2019, the holiday home provider Wolters Reisen GmbH and the round trip specialist Wolters Rundreisen GmbH, of which TUI Group owned 100% of the shares via an investment company, were sold to the Frankfurt-based company e-domizil.

Accommodation

In the 2022 financial year, the Hotels & Resorts segment comprised a total of 353 hotels with 275,144 beds. With 322 properties, the majority are four- or five-star hotels. 53% were operated under management contracts, 38% were owned by the respective hotel company, 8% were leased and 1% of the facilities were operated under franchise agreements. In addition, 65 hotels were operated by third-party hoteliers under TUI's international concept brands as at 30 September 2022, bringing the total number including third-party hotels to 418.

Cruises

TUI's cruise segment operates a total of 16 cruise ships under three brands:

TUI Cruises is a joint venture with Royal Caribbean Cruises. The fleet currently comprises seven ships named Mein Schiff 1 to 7.

Hapag-Lloyd Cruises is responsible for luxury and expedition cruises in German-speaking countries. The brand was transferred to TUI Cruises in 2020. With the MS Europa and the MS Europa 2, the group offers luxury cruises; the two ships were the only cruise ships worldwide to be awarded the 5-star-plus category by the Berlitz Cruise Guide. Hanseatic class expedition ships include the Hanseatic Nature, the Hanseatic Inspiration and the Hanseatic Spirit.

Controversies

On 16 April 2009, TUI Travel and S-Group Travel Holding of the Russian shareholder Alexey Mordashov declared the formation of a joint venture in Russia with investments of 30 million euros to develop tourism activities in Russia and Ukraine. The intention was to take over the tour operators VKO Group and Mostravel in Russia and Voyage Kiev in Ukraine, which had over 160 travel agencies and over half a million customers. In March 2022, TUI AG terminated the brand use agreement with TUI Russia; TUI Russia is no longer a TUI Group company. The last shares in TUI Russia were sold in 2021. In May 2022, it was reported that the major stakeholder and Russian oligarch Alexei Mordashov had made a transfer of a holding of 29.9% of the company: TUI failed to follow the rules and verify the new owner of the shares. In addition, the transfer was a violation of the sanctions against Russia by the European Union, which sanctioned Mordashov personally.

A 2018 study in the UK found that TUI had the largest gender pay gap reported to date by a major UK company, with its male employees paid more than twice what female employees are paid.

TUI has become the main airline carrying out charter deportation flights for the UK Home Office. It is estimated that in November and December 2020 TUI carried out the deportation of more than 150 people in 13 flights to 23 destinations for the Home Office.