Tui has announced plans to speed up expansion of its tours and activities division to ensure it is equipped to take a "dominant market position" once the segment returns to growth.
The group acquired Italian start-up Musement in 2018, and now plans to create a new Musement division encompassing what was Tui Destination Experiences, built around the platform.
Musement, said Tui, combines a scalable digital platform for sourcing, producing and distributing tours and activities in more than 50 countries around the world, which Tui has identified as a key future growth market.
It allows Tui guests to purchase additional experiences while in-destination, currently offering more than 130,000 "things to do" in "all major" holiday and city destinations, said the group.
Tui describes Musement as an "open platform" for tour and activity suppliers, who can leverage Tui’s 21 million annual customers.
Tui has pledged to invest heavily in expanding Musement’s offering through new supplier partnerships, and its distribution through B2B partnerships with the likes of Booking.com and a B2C offering through the Musement and Tui websites.
"Musement has been a key driver of our overall growth strategy since the acquisition in 2018," said Musement chief executive David Schelp. "The platform has become a fundamental part of our DNA and we are proud to show this in our new division name Tui Musement.
"We will continue to invest in our platform capabilities, our supply and our distribution. Tui Musement is ready to work with new suppliers and customers and we are excited about the opportunities we have to create value for, and with, our partners."
Musement co-founder and chief growth officer Alessandro Petazzi said integrating Musement and Tui Destination Experiences would create a tour and activities "power play".
Tui Group executive board member Sebastian Ebel added tours and activities continued to prove a strategic growth area for Tui despite the challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic.
"With these changes, we start a new exciting phase of our growth story," he said. "We are developing a global tours and activities leader, which will be in a dominant market position once tours and activities returns to growth."