TUI AG, the Hannover bawd travel group whose shares are main listed in London, retains an upbeat outlook of its cruise shipping activities.
The company owns 50% of the premium market TUI Cruises unit that caters for the German market, plus 100% of Hapag-Lloyd Kreuzfahrten.
"In Cruises, TUI Cruises underlying EBITA grew by €11m in the quarter, reflecting the full year benefit of Mein Schiff 3 (launched June 2014) and the launch of Mein Schiff 4 (launched June 2015),” the company said in its none month to 30 june interim result statement.
In addition, the continued turnaround of Hapag-Lloyd Kreuzfahrten and €4m benefit from the refinancing of Europa 2 meant that Cruises delivered a €21m increase in underlying EBITA.
“TUI Cruises operates in the high growth, underpenetrated premium German market. We have a strong competitive advantage, having secured additional capacity. In June 2015, TUI Cruises launched Mein Schiff 4 and announced that it will add two further ships (Mein Schiff 7 & 8) in 2018 and 2019, with Mein Schiff 1 and Mein Schiff 2 to be redeployed to Thomson Cruises as it modernises its fleet,” TUI said.
With Hapag-Lloyd Kreuzfahrten, we continue to focus on luxury and expedition cruises. The successful repositioning of the brand has been completed and the turnaround is on-track for this year.
The Supervisory Board of TUI AG and the Board of Royal Caribbean Cruises have decided in May to convert the purchase options for Mein Schiff 7 and Mein Schiff 8 into firm orders as the German cruise market is enjoying further growth. The ships are expected to be delivered in 2018 and 2019.
The new cruise liners will be slightly bigger than their predecessors, having 2,860 lower berth each. Both ships will be built by Meyer Turku (Finland) as all new TUI Cruises ships. The purchase will be financed within the TUI Cruises Joint Venture without further contribution from TUI AG and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd, (RCCL), which owns the other 50% of TUI Cruises.
“In the framework of exercising our purchase option it was agreed that Mein Schiff 1 and Mein Schiff 2 will be moved to Thomson Cruises in the next few years in order to continue the modernisation of the UK cruise operations. These two steps will complete our growth and modernisation roadmap in the cruise segment,” TUI said.
