At € 15.6 billion, turnover by tourism grew by 11.0% year-on-year. Both TUI Travel PLC and the TUI Hotels & Resorts sector increased their turnover year-on-year. Turnover by TUI Travel PLC included a merger-induced increase of € 1,342.5 million due to the first-time consolidation of the First Choice activities as of September 2007. Adjusted for the turnover of First Choice and the turnover of the divested business travel operations still included in 2006, underlying turnover for the tourism division grew by 1.9%.
In shipping, turnover declined slightly by 0.8% to € 6.2 billion despite a continued rise in transport volumes. The main reason for the slight decline in turnover year-on-year was the relative weakness of the US
dollar compared with 2006 and the slight year-on-year decline in average freight rates for the year.
Turnover by central operations fell considerably year-on-year by 85.5%
to € 26 million. This was primarily due to the divestment of the majority interest in Wolf GmbH, a heating and air conditioning company, in October 2006 and the resulting impact on turnover.
