TUI, which has recently inaugurated the TUI Travel Center network in Romania in partnership with Romanian group Eurolines, does not plan to bring its airlines component to Romania any time soon. “We have no plans for TUI airlines in Romania, at least not in the coming 12 to 24 months. We have to check the market first,” said Klaus Pumpel, the CEO of TUI Austria (in picture). “We won't have charters leaving from Romania in the next two years, first we need to prove that, with our sales force, we have the capacity to fill those planes. But we already have a partnership with Fly Nikki for the Bucharest – Vienna flights,” said Dragos Anastasiu, the founder of Eurolines group.

In a first stage, 25 out of Eurolines' 52 agencies will be rebranded as TUI Travel Center and the plans are for the network to reach 100 agencies within the next three years. The first re-branded agency is located on the Nicolae Balcescu boulevard in Bucharest. TUI Travel Center's target in Romania is to become the most important travel agency network in Romania, according to Anastasiu.

The 52 Eurolines agencies will end 2011 with a sales value of EUR 29 million, of which 25 percent coming from tourism, 30 percent from the bus traveling and the rest coming from airline tickets, according to Anastasiu. “The tourism segment will however exceed the other two in two to three years,” he added. Eurolines hopes to at least double its financial results year-on-year in the next four years, Anastasiu added.

TUI Travel Center will act a a travel hypermarket, selling products and packages from various operators and will include TUI's offers, at the same prices as in Germany, said the Eurolines manager. The network hopes to have around 4,000 foreign tourists coming to Romania next year, while a minimum of 6,000 Romanians are expected to use the network's services to reach foreign destinations, according to Anastasiu.

160 Romanian hotels are listed on TUI's website travelbeds.com and their sales through this channel at the end of 2011 could reach EUR 1 million, which would translate into around 10,000 tourists, said Ciprian Popescu, managing director of Danubius Travel, TUI's original investment in Romania. The recently – announced deal also includes the takeover of Danubius Travel.

TUI has been looking for ways to expand on the Romanian market for the last two to three years, according to Klaus Pumpel.

TUI Travel PLC is one of the biggest tourism companies in the world, with activities in 180 countries. The group had a turnover of EUR 16.3 billion in 2010 and also runs an airline with 140 aircraft, as well as a network of 261 hotels under local brands, but within the TUI umbrella.

Corina Saceanu, corina@romania-insider.com

(photo source: TUI)