TUI is stepping up digital sales in Germany, launching a new brand for tours and expanding capacity for Egypt and the Canaries in winter 2019/20.

The TUI.com website will be expanded as the group’s main online sales platform for the German market. The TUIfly.com website will be integrated into it so that “all available flights on the market” can be booked through one site. Similarly, the entire car rental programme, holiday homes portfolio as well as offers from the new TUI Tours brand and specialist TUI Wolters will be bookable through TUI.com.

Sales & marketing chief Hubert Kluske explained that TUI Germany wants to develop omnichannel sales while giving customers the option of choosing personal advice by booking an appointment in a nearby travel agency.

One major product innovation is the launch of TUI Tours, initially offering more than 100 exclusively bookable coach trip holidays in 33 countries with German-speaking tour guides. In Europe, destinations include Spain, Portugal, Italy and the British Isles, while there are long-haul destinations such as Cuba, Mexico, Thailand and South Africa. TUI plans to add more countries and broaden the programme to cover car rental and private tours.

In addition, the portfolio of destination activities and city trips will be expanded to 150,000 different products, including wellness offers, sports events, cultural visits and guided tours.

For winter 2019/20, TUI will expand capacity for winter sun holidays in Egypt and the Canaries. TUIfly will increase flights to Hurghada by 35% and to Marsa Alam by 22%. Two new Sensimar hotels will open next winter on Gran Canaria and La Palma.

Tourism director Stefan Baumert predicted: “Egypt will again be one of the top destinations. After demand increased significantly during this summer, we are expanding capacity substantially for the German market next winter.”

In addition, TUI Germany is cutting prices by 2% for the Canaries, its top winter destination, and also for Cuba, while prices will be largely unchanged for Majorca and many long-haul destinations.

However, the German market leader had little to say at its winter programme presentation about current trends for this summer apart from selected destination booking figures. TUI released impressive growth figures for Turkey (+40%), Morocco (+37%), Egypt (+31%) and Cyprus (+19%) but did not disclose any figures for Spain or Greece.

Source: ttps://www.fvw.de/international/travel-news/winter-201920-programme-tui-germany-goes-omnichannel-and-launches-tours-brand-202119?utm_source=%2Fmeta%2Fnewsletter%2Ffvwinternational&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=nl773&utm_term=838f7d6838eb6f3a5e4f74b0f8384247