Tourism giant TUI ups forecasts despite Q2 loss

German travel and tourism giant TUI said Wednesday that its net loss widened in the second quarter, but it was nevertheless upgrading its full-year forecasts. TUI, which operates its business year from October to September, said in a statement it booked net loss of 248.4 million euros ($320 million) in the period from January to March, compared with a loss of 185.2 million euros a year earlier. At an operating or underlying level, the group's second-quarter loss narrowed slightly to 303.4 million euros from 309.5 million a year earlier, while revenues increased by 1.9 percent to 3.344 billion euros. TUI attributed the wider bottom-line loss to one-off effects, including writedowns on a hotel project in Italy, provisions connected with the expansion of its fleet of cruise ships at its unit Hapag-Lloyd Kreuzfahrten, and restructuring expenses. On the basis of such a "sound operating performance... the outlook for the full-year operating result has been lifted," said chief executive Horst Baier. TUI's management board was now pencilling in an "improvement" in underlying earnings for the whole year, he said. And while net one-off expenses "will exceed our original guidance" overall profits "will remain positive for the full year, but will be considerably impacted by one-off effects," Baier said.