TUI Travel PLC

TUI Travel PLC is an international leisure travel company, operating in 180 countries and serving 30m customers. It is headquartered in Crawley, West Sussex, England. It was created by a merger of the tourism division of TUI AG, which owns 51% of the company, and First Choice Holidays PLC.

On 4th June 2007 the European Commission gave conditional clearance for the proposed merger to create TUI Travel PLC and on 3 September 2007 the new company began trading on the London Stock Exchange.
It is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

Merger process
In March 2007 a merger was announced between Thomson's parent company TUI AG and First Choice Holidays PLC to form a new company, TUI Travel PLC. In March 2007 TUI AG tourism division agreed to a merger with First Choice Holidays PLC.
On May 4 2007 the Commission expressed concern over the potential for dominance in the Irish market from the combined operation. TUI and First Choice released a statement which gave assurances that they would address this issue, including the possibility of selling one of their Irish brands which include Falcon and Budget Travel. This means that Phase One of the Commission's investigation was extended by ten days.

Mainstream Sector
This section serves 24m customers a year and is split into two subsections (sales of complete travel packages and sales of components such as flights) and three geographical areas (Central Europe, Northern Europe, Western Europe).
Central Europe - covering Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Eastern Europe - contributed a fleet of 48 aircraft, a retail estate of 1,774 shops and over 9,400 employees.

Northern Europe - UK, Ireland and 'the Nordic countries' - had a fleet of 84 aircraft, a retail estate of 1,131 shops and over 22,000 employees.
Western Europe - France, the Netherlands and Belgium - had a fleet of 20 aircraft, a retail estate of 689 shops and over 6,500 employees.
The section has 89 brands including Thomson and First Choice.

Specialist Sector
The sector includes 25 brands covering 2m customers and 3,000 employees. This section is split into three subsections (Destination, Premium and Lifestages).
Destination is the companies portfolio of local market leaders, Premium is 5 UK-based brands offering 'premium leisure travel experiences' in Europe, Asia and the Caribbean. Lifestages is the demographic specialist arm, aiming at groups such as older people and students.

Online Destination Services
39 brands with 15m customers and 4,400 employees covering direct sale of holidays and components and including Laterooms.com.

Activity Sector
39 brands with almost 400,000 customers every year, employing approximately 3,300, divided into three subsectors (Marine, Adventure, Experiential).
Marine is direct hire business First Choice Marine, Sunsail Clubs watersports holidays and Inland Waterways. Adventure includes trekking and expedition cruising. Experiential offers US-based specialist escorted tours. iExplore.com is their one-stop portal website for this sector.

Island Cruises
TUI Travel operates a joint-venture cruise line with Royal Caribbean under the Island Cruises name.