Tui cheers profit jump despite pressure from heat waves and Middle East conflict

Holiday giant Tui has revealed a jump in profits despite a “challenging” backdrop linked to European heat waves and conflict in the Middle East.

Bosses at the firm stressed that the group has been boosted by its recent growth strategy.

The German-based tour operator saw profits surpass expectations after positive trading from its cruises and experiences operations.

The update came a day after the company upgraded its financial forecasts for the current year.

Tui Group chief executive Sebastian Ebel said: “The third quarter and the first nine months of the financial year 2025 were strong. Our strategy is paying off.

“We are benefiting from our integrated and diversified business model and managed to reduce the group’s seasonality further.

“All this in a continuing challenging environment for our markets and airlines segment with economic difficulties in Europe, Europe-wide heat waves in the summer and the conflict in the Middle East.”

The company said summer bookings in its markets and airlines business are down 2% year-on-year.

Tui said this has been driven by a continued trend towards late bookings, citing “the impact of the June and July heat waves in our source markets, as well as the Middle East conflict”.

But it highlighted a “positive start” to bookings for the winter season.

It came as Tui cheered record underlying earnings for the quarter to June 30, rising to 321 million euros (£278 million) from 232 million euros (£201 million) a year earlier.

This was supported by a 56.2% jump in earnings from its cruises business, which was buoyed by the launch of two new cruise ships and strong trading conditions.

Meanwhile, earnings in its Tui Musement activities and experiences business were up 6.8% for the quarter.

The company said total underlying earnings are now on track to grow by between 9% and 11% this year. It previously forecast growth of between 7% and 10%.

Tui told shareholders that total group revenues increased by 7.1% to 6.2 billion euros (£5.4 billion) for the quarter, amid growth in both volumes and prices.