TUI, the Germany-based tour operator, informed Friday that its Tourism Division snapped up €720 million worth of benefits in the first three quarters of the ongoing year, up a whopping 36.7 percent from the first nine months of 2003. The company’s front office says the good outcomes stem from a feverish summertime travel season that yielded over €10.5 billion in revenue.

The first three quarters of the ongoing year couldn’t be any better for Sol Meliá. The Spanish hotel chain has reportedly netted €55.5 million worth of gains, compared to little more that €32 million in the first nine months of 2003. Sol Meliá’s benefit estimates before tax deduction and hedges earlier this year was hovering around 20 percent, yet the company scooped up an unthought-of 24.1 percent increase.

The cash surplus of Mexico’s travel industry scored a big increase in the first eight months of the ongoing year, up a whopping 20.8 percent from the same span of time in 2003. During that period, the country reaped over $2.8 billion worth of revenues, thanks in part to a 13.3 percent climb in tourist benefits that totaled more than $7.3 billion.

Cuba is pledging to stick to the economic guaranties it has traditionally given to international financial institutions and foreign companies that do business with the island nation. Cuba’s Minister of Foreign Trade, Raul de la Nuez, speaking before a group of entrepreneurs that attended Havana’s 22nd International Fair, assured there won’t be any problems as far as availability of hard currency funds are concerned. Mr. de la Nuez was clearly referring to the Cuban government’s recent decision to call off the circulation of U.S. dollars in the national territory and replace greenbacks with convertible pesos.

British Airways (BA), one of Europe’s largest air carriers, will cease flying to Colombia on February 2005 in an effort to stop the bleeding of heavy losses the company’s operations in that South American nation have sustained over the past five years. This is the second European airline that has called flights to and from Colombia to a halt. Germany’s Lufthansa has not flown to that nation since 2002.

Foreign tourists traveling to Mexico from next month onward, will find a new bank note of 1,000 pesos (some $85 to the current exchange rate) that will go the 500-peso bill one better as the highest denomination in the hands of the Bank of Mexico (BM). The new bill will hit the streets on November 15. Manuel Galan, programming head at the BM, said the 1,000 note comes on the heels of inflationary pressures that have hit the country hard in recent months.