TUI Group expands in Portugal

The tour and travel operator TUI, one of the largest in the world, has expanded to Portugal with a Digital Hub.

It comes as the CEO of the TUI Group, Sebastian Ebel said in an interview with the business daily Negócios that here are “many good reasons to invest in Portugal” citing three major factors: political stability, support (tax) from the government for new activities and the quality of Portugal’s workforce, while also stressing the attractiveness of the country as a tourism destination.
The German travel agency says the digital hub in Porto will employ 200 people in 2024. With teams in Faro, Funchal, Lisbon and Ponta Delgado, TUI has acquired the software development centre that was set up by Cocus in 2017.
The hub will be linked to its technology structures that it already has in Poland and India. In an interview with ECO, the company’s Chief Information Officer (CIO), Peter Jordaan, said that the multinational travel agency had “arrived at an agreement with to acquire the operation” (from Cocus) and kickstart the project.
Cocus referred to an “expected step as part of a BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer) model that represents the organic development of a prosperous and well-established operation in Portugal”.
“Now the focus is to increase even more teams. We plan to up the number of employees to 200 by the end of 2024”, said the group’s spokesperson. This will include developers, architects, product owners and business analysts for junior and senior positions.
The office in Matosinhos run by Paulo Grilo has over the past 24 years had IT and business functions in several countries and entities of the group,” and will now “ensure that this team will really be part of the (TUI) organisation.”