The pandemic is over – at least in everyday life and in people’s heads. Although there are still infections with the coronavirus and resulting deaths, life in 2023 was for most people here in Germany quite different from the three years before, which were at least partly characterized by lockdowns and travel restrictions.

Still not back to pre-Corona level That you can now travel abroad relatively barrier-free and take a vacation again is used by numerous tourists. Although the high inflation of the past months forces private households to save – but the desire to travel is great, and so the annual vacation is usually not cancelled, but only shortened or condensed into one to two larger trips instead of multiple everyday escapes.

But although the booking level from 2019 – i.e. the last year before the pandemic – could not yet be reached again, the tourism giant Tui reported record numbers on this Wednesday. The financial year ending in September brought the Hanover-based company a surplus of a whopping 306 million euros. Last year, Tui was still deep in the red numbers and had to record a loss of 277 million euros. The pre-tax profit was almost twice as high as the previous year at just over 1 billion euros. The turnover is now a record of 20.7 billion euros.

Tui profits from higher prices Since the number of tourists has not yet reached a new record high, it quickly becomes clear that the good results are due not least to higher prices. Hotels, flights, package holidays – all this is not exempt from inflation and has risen sharply in price. Nevertheless, people are drawn to the distance.

Looking ahead to the coming months, the company expects the Western Mediterranean or the Canary Islands to be particularly in demand. Popular holiday destinations such as Turkey or Egypt, however, could suffer from the war in the Middle East.

Investors enthusiastic: Tui share rises in double digits Long-term future trends are seen by the company’s management at Tui not least in the implementation of artificial intelligence, which is not only used for better chat bots for customer communication, but is also increasingly used for the individual assembly and planning of travel packages in the future.

Investors are pleased with the strong result in a business year that Tui itself has described as a transformation year in order to get back on track after the pandemic losses. Analysts were initially cautiously optimistic: In initial reactions, experts from the analysis houses Bernstein Research, Jefferies and the Swiss major bank UBS confirmed their previous course targets and also the neutral rating of the Tui share.

Nevertheless, the share price of the paper was able to gain a strong 13 percent by early afternoon on Wednesday.