TUI France faces comprehensive restructuring – focus on core brands and third-party distribution.
HANOVER / PARIS – TUI Group continues the repositioning of the company in the wake of the Corona pandemic. A comprehensive restructuring plan for the French regional entity TUI France was presented yesterday. In future, TUI France will focus on the high-margin business with a few core brands. Offers that are high-volume but do not generate sufficient margins are removed from the portfolio. As a result, TUI France's business volume will decline. In addition, in France, the Group's own distribution network of 70 travel agencies is to be sold or closed.
As a result of the newly tailored product range and the changed distribution model, the company will be significantly leaner. The project foresees a reduction of 583 jobs, in the scenario of the closing of all own retail shops, which is approximately 60 per cent of the current TUI France staff base. The changes are now being discussed with the relevant committees and employee representatives in France. The future plan should then enable TUI France to break even from 2021 onwards.
TUI France was already loss-making before the pandemic. In a structurally challenging market with a high cost structure and low margins, the company had been making losses in recent years. In the wake of the corona pandemic, the situation for TUI France has again deteriorated significantly. A far-reaching package of measures is now needed to create a perspective for the company within the Group.
In May 2020, TUI announced that as a consequence of the Corona crisis, all business operations would be reviewed in order to steer the Group as a whole safely through the crisis and provide it with a stable future. Subsidiaries and regional entities that had been loss-making in recent years should be restructured.
Overall, the TUI Group aims to reduce its overhead cost base by 30 per cent worldwide. The restructuring of TUI France is a step towards making TUI more competitive and then emerging from the crisis stronger.
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