Wednesday, May 13, 2009

TUI Online Destination Services Group - digging for details - UPDATED

Update to a post from March 2009. Am trying to collect as much information in one place about the TUI Online Destination Services group. Update drawn from TUI Q1 2009 trading update. Includes a link to a new corporate site (at least one I have not seen before) for the TUI ODS. In turn this points to a one page pdf profile document (called a fact sheet - link will open a pdf). Confirms much of the below but also adds that:
  • the ODS headquarters is in Palma Spain; and
  • "employs circa 8,000 people worldwide"
The "Financial Highlights" Section reports the following


FY07

FY08

Change

Revenue

£455mm

£502mm

+10.3%

Profit/Loss bf tax

£49mm

£57mm

+16.3%


And here is the original post

Yesterday's post of AsiaRooms spurred some BOOT readers to dig around for more information on the TUI Online Destination Services group. I had initially assumed this group to be focused exclusively on online distribution for TUI (as the name implies. Seems there is more to it. This is the group at TUI that is responsible for B2B and B2C. Here is the introductory paragraph from the ODS page on the TUI Travel PLC 2008 Annual Report & Accounts website.
"Online Destination Services combines a portfolio of B2B and B2C businesses providing destination services to tour operators, travel agencies and individual clients worldwide. This includes selling hotel accommodation, organising meetings, incentives, conferences and events (MICE), as well as providing port services, turnarounds and shore excursions to cruise lines."
Shows there is a strong but not exclusive online bent to the business. Goes on to set out three divisions within ODS.

B2B HotelBeds - online accommodation and offline destination services through:
B2B Portfolio Incoming - "network of destination agencies worldwide and includes brand" (not sure what that means). Includes
Combined 2008 online results - 18,298,000 bed nights (not room nights) (up 6% y-o-y)

B2C - Online to consumer. Three brands (as we discussed yesterday):
2008 online results - 6,966,000 bed nights (not room nights) (down 6% y-o-y)

Combined ODS - 2008 underlying profit GBP57.4mm up from GBP49.2mm in 2007

SamIAm also sent through another link for a different profile page for the ODS. At the bottom of this page is a drop down box listing the following (as of date fo this post) as brands for the business. Here is the list of TUI ODS brands from that link:

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

They also own Peregrine (the "adventure" tour company) and, by default it's budget offshoot Gekkos.

Tim Hughes said...

@Stuart - thanks!

Isobel Joaquin said...

Wonderful post, it's very informative.

I can really make use of this info.

Isobel

Tim Hughes said...

@Isobel - thanks for the feedback. I will keep adding to this post as I collect more info so please check back in

John said...

Tim the digger!

Tim Hughes said...

@John - absolutely

Dan said...

add iexplore.com

Carl said...

They also own tour operator Imaginative Traveller.

Carl said...

Actually there's quite a few more tour operators come to mind that fall under TUI control.

Adventure Tours Australia acquired March 09 - includes the brands Wayward Bus, Oz Experience and Wilderness Adventures.

Also own small group tour operators in Australia OzXposure, WesternXposure, Planet Perth and Australian Pinnacle Tours acquired Feb 08.

Pretty sure most of these smaller ones run under their TrekAmerica (another operator they own) OzXposure Group, part of the group's activity sector.

Also own BenTours / Myplanet.

Tim Hughes said...

@Carl - thanks for the tips. As you say those companies (as well as the Fantatics and ATS sports groups)are part of the Activities Sector of TUI (as you say) rather than ODS. Which is controlled and operated separately.

Carl said...

Hi Tim, yes they seem to be acquiring and operating tour companies in both the ODS and Activites groups.

As you mention in post ODS brands seem slanted slightly more B2B than B2C although Pollmans and Ranger definitely do both.

Will be interesting to see how these groups evolve over time as they integrate current or acquire more.

Thanks for a great post.

Tim Hughes said...

@Carl - Thanks again. I agree there does not seem to be a clear reason why one tour operator is in ODS and one in Activities. May be systems, ops or technology related rather than something about common business models.