TUI Group has said cost savings are the biggest benefit it has derived from artificial intelligence (AI) so far.
Reporting the company’s third quarter 2026 earnings, CEO Sebastian Ebel said the company would not have had the results it announced without AI.
“[It’s a] game change to customer service, game change in yielding, in how you do the production. Looking forward, for me, the biggest game change is in distribution. Because through the LMMs, you will search direct unless you go to the producer,” Ebel said.
He added that he sees the market as “black and white,” with consumers going to the strong travel brands or the LLMs to search and then be redirected to the brand.
“That will reduce the acquisition cost for new customers. That’s why we put so much effort to link to the LMMs.”
The European tour operator reported group revenue of €5.8 billion in Q3, down from €6.2 billion year over year. Group EBIT was down almost €87 million to €234 million. TUI Musement revenue increased to €308 million from €283 million year over year. Hotels and resorts revenue was €313, up from €300 year over year.
During the earnings call with analysts, Ebel said the company had built connections to all the LLMs and was seeing good conversion.
The company also discussed learnings from its €250 million cost savings program in its markets and airlines division, announced at the end of 2025. The aim was to achieve a third in 2026, a third in 2027 and have the program fully implemented in 2028. The aim was to reduce overhead cost by 60% and achieve the remaining 40% through operational efficiency.
Ebel reiterated that the biggest change is AI, with roles such as Java developers hardly needed anymore.
“You need an AI manager, and that is not only a significant source of efficiency gain, it is also a cost gain. It is also a big thing in efficiency gain that you can increase development speed by a high factor. This is, for a traditional company, quite tough work, but we have a great CIO, and that is why we are doing good progress.”