Change at the beginning of 2024.
Erik Friemuth, Managing Director TUI Hotels & Resorts and Chief Marketing Officer of the TUI Group, will take on a new challenge outside of TUI Group at the beginning of the new year and will assume operational responsibility for a different company as CEO.
Friemuth joined TUI in 2014 as Chief Marketing Officer and became a Member of the Group Executive Committee. Right at the beginning of his time, he planned and successfully implemented a reorganisation of TUI’s brand portfolio. Under his leadership, the Group has introduced and established TUI as an strong global brand in all of its markets. Friemuth played a decisive role in making the brand relaunch a success story. In 2017, he also took over responsibility for the management of the TUI hotel brands Robinson, TUI Magic Life and TUI Blue as Managing Director TUI Hotels & Resorts. During this time, TUI’s own hotel portfolio has grown significantly. Last year, Friemuth was also given Group-wide responsibility for Customer Experience and the Central Customer Ecosystem, and here too he quickly launched important initiatives that will shape TUI in the long term.
Sebastian Ebel, CEO of TUI Group: “I very much regret the change, as I share a long and close working relationship with Erik Friemuth, which started even before he joined TUI in 2014. We were already colleagues in our previous roles. Such a long collaboration creates a strong bond. As much as I would have liked to retain Erik Friemuth at TUI, I understand his aspiration to take on direct operational responsibility as CEO of a company after ten successful years at Group level. Erik Friemuth has played a decisive role in making TUI a global power brand and in ensuring that TUI’s hotel brands are strongly positioned with an ambitious growth agenda. The brand relaunch, for which he was responsible, is an enduring success story. What sounds self-evident today was an enormous challenge with great commercial opportunities, but equally great risks in implementation. Erik Friemuth has strengthened the TUI brand and positioned it more broadly. TUI Blue is also part of his personal success story, as we started this brand from scratch. On behalf of all my colleagues on the Group Executive Committee, I would like to thank him for the good cooperation and his great contribution over the past ten years. We wish him all the best for his new challenge.”
Erik Friemuth said: “I would like to thank Sebastian Ebel and the entire TUI team for the great cooperation over the past ten years and the trust in my work. In the hotel sector, I was able to develop a new brand and accelerate its growth. My time at TUI was exciting and very eventful. After almost ten years with the company, the time has now come for me to take on a new challenge. After having worked at a strategic level, especially in the last few years, I would like to take on an operational role and directly manage a company in my new role alongside my strategic work. I am now faced with this opportunity as I start a new role at the beginning of the year.”
The Group will decide and announce the future structure and succession in the individual areas of responsibility by the time Erik Friemuth moves on.
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales.
She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.
