Quarterly results

The German travel giant said gains on the sale of a stake in Hapag-Lloyd pushed it to a 415 million euro ($565 million) first-quarter net profit. But sales were 15 percent lower.

The gain for the January-March period compared with a net loss of 279 million euros in the first quarter of 2008, TUI said.

Sales for the period, however, fell 15 percent to 3.1 billion euros from 3.6 billion euros in the first-quarter of last year, as fewer people vacationed during the recession.

TUI brought in 990 million euros in the quarter from the sale of a stake of its Hapag-Lloyd marine division to a consortium of investors, including the city of Hamburg.

For 2009 as a whole, the company predicted sales would keep falling. But the overall result "is expected to be positive and improve considerably year-on-year," in part owing to the container-shipping sale and decreased integration costs in its tourism division.