Ladies and gentlemen. In my capacity as the Chairman of the Supervisory Board, I am here with opening this year's ordinary shareholders meeting of TUI AG's 18-0. To begin with, I would like to welcome you very heartily on behalf of the Supervisory Board and the Executive Board here in this TUI arena. My greetings are also extended to the representatives of the media who are present here today. I would like to thank you for your fair coverage in the previous year, which in addition to our own publications, provide a very important source of information for all our shareholders. I would like to welcome Dr. Schneider, the head of our legal department, who is going to assist me during the meeting, and notably Dr. Herb from Hanover, who is going to assist us as well.
On behalf of almost 70,000 colleagues of our company, I would like to thank those of the colleagues who are present here today who are going to support us during this annual meeting. Please accept the gratitude and the thanks of the Supervisory Board, the Executive Board, and all our shareholders on behalf of your colleagues. I'm now going to continue with some formalities. All the current members of the Supervisory Board and of the Executive Board are present here today. In addition, I would like to welcome Mrs. Garaña Corces, who is going to be suggested for election onto the Supervisory Board under item eight of the agenda. Mrs. Garaña Corces is going to present herself after the report of the Supervisory Board. Unfortunately, Mrs. Arnold cannot attend due to the fact that she has an appointment, which has been fixed a long time ago.
We are going to present her in a short video cast. I would now like to continue with some more formalities. Today's annual general meeting was convened in due form and time of publication in the Federal Gazette on the 22nd of January 2019. The legally required notifications to shareholders entered in the share register and to banks and shareholders associations pursuant to Section 125 of the German Stock Corporation Act were sent to you by TUI AG's shareholder service, were also published on our website. From the day of the invitation till today, the following inspections have been available in the offices of the company, the adopted annual financial statement of TUI AG with the executive board's proposal for the appropriation of retained earnings, the approved consolidated financial statements, and the combined management reports of TUI AG and the group as of 30th of September 2019.
The report of the Supervisory Board, which is also part of the annual report of 2019, the explanatory report of the executive board on the disclosures in accordance with Sections 289a, Section 1, and 315a, Section 1 of the German Commercial Code of TUI AG for the financial year 2019, which is also part of the annual report for 2019. The report of the executive board on the resolution proposed under Item six of the agenda concerning a new authorization to acquire and use treasury shares with possible exclusion of the subscription and tender rights, as well as the possibility of redeeming treasury shares, including by reducing the share capital. The invitation to today's annual general meeting, together with the agenda and proposed resolutions of the Management Board and the Supervisory Board.
These documents are also available here today at the front of the table, seen from a point of view down right in front of the podium. In addition to other documents to be made accessible, they were also available on our website as soon as the invitation was published in the Federal Gazette. The company has not received any requests for supplements to be announced. Counter motions on the agenda items three and four. That is resolution on the ratification of the actions of the members of the executive board and the resolution on the ratification of the actions of the memory of the Supervisory Board. Counter proposals have been announced by the Umbrella Association of Critical Shareholders, which were made available on the company's website. Other counter motions or election proposals have not been received.
Ladies and gentlemen, it will take some time until we will be able to finish the list of shareholders and shareholder representatives. I will announce the attendance after the completion of the list. The directory can be viewed at the front of the speech table at the bottom right in front of the podium from my point of view, and electronically at two PC terminals until the end of this meeting. Both PC terminals are on the first level. One PC terminal opposite the Investor Relations counter, the other PC terminal between the catering outlets. The attendance record will be continuously updated. I would like to give you some further information on the proceedings of this annual meeting. While I am speaking and the speeches of Dr. Joussen and Mr. Conix, there will be a live stream on the internet.
Photo, film, and sound recordings are not permitted in order to protect the shareholders' personal meeting during the annual meeting. I would also like you to switch off your mobile phones, please. Food and beverage is offered in the area directly in front of the hall on the first level, where you can see the sign catering. Smoking is not permitted. For smokers, we have a designated smoking area in which the speeches are transmitted via loudspeakers. The smoking area is located on the terrace on the first floor behind the catering outlets. From a legal point of view, the meeting area includes this hall, the accessible area on the first floor up to the presence check, as well as the smoking area. The proceedings of the meetings are transmitted via loudspeakers into the meeting area outside this hall and into the back office.
If you wish to take part in the debate on the different items on the agenda, please use the required forms. The forms are available for you at the request desk, from where I am on the right-hand side in front of the podium, and must also be returned after their completion. If you want to save yourself the trouble, our staff present here will be happy to forward your request to staff. Please fill in the agenda items which you want to refer to on these forms, as well as your name and place of residence, the number of your attendance and voting record printed on the front of your attendance and voting record at the bottom left, and the question you want to raise. If you want to hand in the motions, I would like to ask you to submit them in writing with your request to speak.
All the questions that have been prepared in writing can be handed in advance at the speaker's desk, but you still will have to ask the questions later on. In order to make sure that the attendance list can be updated until the very last vote takes place, we would like to ask all shareholders or representatives of shareholders who would like to leave the presence area to leave a power of attorney, either for a shareholder or a representative of a shareholder or any other representative or to deregister. On how to proceed with the vote of the agenda is something I'm going to explain later on. Just like we did last year, this will be done by way of tablets, which will be used instead of voting cards.
The voting right can be exercised in person, or if you want to leave the meeting in advance, you can leave a proxy to either a shareholder or shareholder representative. For this purpose, you can get a form, which you will get at the reception counter. In order to make sure that we will always know what the attendance is, we would like to ask you to leave the meeting room only if you authorize a third party with your proxy. All other information, as far as the general debate is concerned, will be given later. All information can also be found on the form that was given to you during the accreditation process. Thank you very much for listening to me. We are going to process the agenda. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to process as follows. All the items will be discussed in one general debate.
After that, the resolutions on the motions will be taken on the individual items of the agenda. I am now going to process one item of the agenda after the other. Item one, presentation of the approved annual financial statement as of September 2019, the approved consolidated financial statements, and Item of the agenda two, resolution on the use of the net profit available for distribution. Agenda Item three, resolution on the proposal of the actions of the Executive Board. Item four on the agenda, resolution on the approval of the actions of the Supervisory Board. Item five, resolution on the appointment of the auditor. Item six, a resolution on a new authorization to acquire and use own shares in accordance with Article 71, with potential disapplication of preemption rights and rights to tender shares and the option to cancel own shares, also with reducing the share capital.
Item seven, amendment of the charter. Item eight, election of four Supervisory Board members. That is Mr. Vladimir Lukin, Mrs. Coline McConville, Mrs. María Garaña Corces, and Mrs. Ingrid-Helen Arnold. Item nine, resolution on the approval of the remuneration arrangements for the Executive Board. On item one , you have the approved annual financial statements as of September 2019, the approved consolidated financial statements, the summarized management and Group Management Report, with a report explaining the information in accordance with Section 289a(1) and Section 315a(1) of the German Commercial Code, and the report of the Supervisory Board. According to Section 271 has approved of the Group's Management Board and the consolidated financial statements. This means that for the business year from October 1, 2018 to September 30, 2019 has been approved. Now on item two of the agenda, that is the use of the net profit available.
The Executive Board and Supervisory Board proposed for the financial year that was ended on 30th September 2019. That is EUR 1,286,076,277. There should be a dividend of EUR 0.54 per share, per TUI AG share carrying dividend rights, and the remaining amount of EUR 1,176,750,526 to put forward to new account. Before I'm going to give the floor to the Executive Board, and then will give you the floor to ask some questions and to make some statements, I would like now present the report of the Supervisory Board, plus talk about the remuneration system. The report of the Supervisory Board has been printed
I would like to concentrate now on some of the main points in this report, ladies and gentlemen. We are now able to respond to unexpected events and insecurities in connection with Brexit. We are actually able to put up with the grounding for Boeing, and nonetheless, we have been able to achieve a very solid growth. The disappearance of our competitor, Thomas Cook, means that we must not rest on our laurels, but in fact, we must continuously work on our development.
In this connection, I'm very glad to say that Mr. Joussen, who has really been a driver of all these transformation processes, has renewed his contract by five years, and we have also been able to renew the contract of our IT or CIO, Mr. Frank Rosenberger. In the framework of the Supervisory Board report, I have reported about the work of the Supervisory Board and its committees in great detail. I would like to make use of this opportunity to talk about the changes in the Supervisory Board and also adjustments in the remuneration system. As you can see from the invitation under item eight in the agenda, the Supervisory Board now has four Supervisory Board members to be reelected.
After Coline McConville and Mr. Vladimir Lukin, they already are part of the Supervisory Board after Professor Mangold then had stepped down from his office, Mr. Vladimir Lukin was appointed by the court in June 2019 as a member of the Supervisory Board. Mr. Lukin, you know him already since he's been a member of the Supervisory Board in 2014. Well, we also agreed on an age limit for the reelection or election to the Supervisory Board, and thus Mrs. Kong and Ms. Gooding are not standing for election this year. I would like to use this opportunity in order to thank both for their valuable work and their valuable contribution in order to complete the merger and the cultural cooperation between the two companies. TUI nowadays is not a German-British or British-German operation, but it is a truly international group of companies.
As new members to the Board, it is Mrs. Helen Arnold and Ms. Garaña Corces who have been suggested as new members. As you can see from the invitation and their CVs, they have international experience and comprehensive experience in digitization and transformation of work in the Supervisory Board. After my presentation, these two ladies will be presented in more detail. Ladies and gentlemen, I would now like to talk about the adjustments in the remuneration system for the Management Board. As you can see from the invitation and my additional letter to the shareholders dated 19th December 2019, it's in the framework of the annual approval of the board compensation that adjustments have been applied after we had done that at the beginning of the business year 2018. You may have been wondering why we have readjusted the system.
Well, the degree of target attainment has led to the fact that no payment in terms of variable pay was made. With a view to the profit and share price development in the past years, this is basically no problem. As you can already see that the LTIP, from today's point of view, will not lead to any payments in the next three years, you can clearly tell that the adjustments made in 2018 have even reinforced the systematic weaknesses of the compensation system, and it is important to have a long-term variable pay that it is not justified to have a system that does not allow for any payments if the management work is done and if the strategic decisions have been clearly correct.
Well, we have a problematic retrospective perspective of the current three LTIPs, and thus for the future, we will need a new system that offers an opportunity to actually receive a payment if ambitious goals have been reached in the next four years. What are the actual adjustments that we have applied in the current remuneration system? As opposed to what has sometimes been written in the press, it is exactly the fixed portion of the pay that has not been changed. This has been described in item nine on the agenda for today's meeting, and also in my letter dated 19th December 2019. It was not our goal to increase pay, but to do away with structural mistakes. Well, there were the following adjustments. The key financial figures and benchmarks will be EBIT and no longer EBT.
This is because E-B-I-T or EBIT is far more common than anything else. Return on invested capital is something that we have extracted from the variable portion of the pay, because this is a performance indicator that actually has a perspective across several years. With the cash flow, we have adapted the definition, and the cash flow will be the reference for the distribution of dividends in the future. We are convinced that it is also in the interest of shareholders. The cash flow will then be in a stronger focus, and the cash flow before dividends will then also be shown in the annual report. As a component for the board compensation, the cash flow will thus be more consistent and more transparent. Concerning the business year 2018, the target range has been narrowed from 90%-110%.
This already leads to a moderate change of the results in the sense of all or nothing. While this volatile development of the pay is actually desirable, thus we have expanded the corridor again to the common corridor from 75% to 115%. As opposed to the actual payments of the past years, no key changes have become apparent. For the future, the adjustments should enable a situation where volatility and cyclicity of the business model can be reflected. At the example of Mr. Joussen, the business year 2017 should have led to a higher annual bonus of about EUR 150,000, which corresponds to about 8%. In the business year 2018, however, the pay would have been EUR 150,000 less, which corresponds to 9%. In the business year 2019, no payouts would have taken place based on the new corridors.
Thus it means he will not be in a better position. Then there is another adjustment element according to Article 11 of the new German Corporate Governance Code. This code says that the Supervisory Board should have the possibility to take account of extraordinary developments to an appropriate degree. This increase should lead to a situation where, in specific cases, a variable pay portion can either be retained and also reclaimed. This must be published in the remuneration report, and we have provided for that in the future. I would also like to point to another adjustment. In the past, in the framework of the non-financial goals, 50% of goal attainment has been defined, and otherwise 25% for the general management and stakeholder objectives. The current transformation phase will be successful if the Management Board acts jointly across different responsibilities.
Thus, the Supervisory Board for the current business year has received new targets in the non-financial sphere. That is sustainability, transformation, and employee engagement. Thus, it has attributed a higher importance to the stakeholder and general management goals. This concludes my explanations concerning short-term variable pay. In the framework of the long-term variable portion of the remuneration, we have a specific starting situation. As you can see here, there has been no payout in the business year 2019. Look at the current changes. It is Cut-off date perspective as of 30th September 2019. You can see in this overview that these tranches, based on their defined targets, the TSR and the EPS, led to a situation where no payout can be expected. We have analyzed the reasons for that, and we noticed that the ambitious goals from 2018 were even too ambitious from today's point of view.
The tranche that would have been used for distribution is the one that should have been paid out in 2018 before the last adjustment was made. We have now decided that for the future, the goal of total shareholder return, TSR, should be eliminated altogether. In 42% of the disciplines of gambling, cinema, and catering, these activities take place. Thomas Cook was no longer contained in the index since 2016. For lack of relevant benchmark companies, no comparison is possible. After extracting TSR, we took a look at the targets for the EPS again, the earnings per share. We are convinced that with an average growth of 5% per year, we have a very ambitious target and we want to maintain it for the future.
We are a growth-oriented company, on the other hand, we are right in the middle of a transformation phase towards a digital platform company. It is possible and not improbable that in the course of this large transformation, measures will have to be implemented that slow down the growth of the company for the short term, but will lead to growth for the long term. We have thus opened up the lower corridor so that an increase by at least three percentage points per year is possible in order to take account of the long-term developments. Then we have introduced a clawback clause. It means in the case of severe infringements against the corporate code of TUI or any due diligence, the payout of variable compensation can be reduced or deleted altogether, or it can be reclaimed entirely or in part.
Ultimately, I would like to talk about the adequacy test in a horizontal and vertical comparison. The expert opinion of an external independent auditor shows that the remuneration continues to be appropriate. I would now like to welcome Ms. Garaña Corces. Please join me here on stage. In the meantime, I would also like to tell you that Mrs. Arnold has an important appointment that she already had before the nomination process, but we have a video message that we will display after Ms. Garaña Corces has taken the floor.
Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. It is a pleasure to be here. As a way of briefly share my experience with you, I'll start by saying that I've been in the world of technology, innovation, and digital transformation for over 20 years. Let me also share that for me, digital transformation, it's about identifying opportunities and challenges, converting those into technical solutions, but making sure that you revert to the business. Meaning that what is going to be the effect in the business when you apply technology and you go through digital transformation? How this is going to help sell more, save more, or be closer to your customers? This is, as I said, the way that I understand technology, I understand digital transformation in a moment in which, quite frankly, that expression could mean everything or nothing.
I've been leading different groups, different companies, as I said, in the last 20 years, mainly with Microsoft and Google in different geographies. I currently lead a division in Europe, Middle East, and Africa. In the past, I also led operations in the United States and Latin America, where on my way back to Europe, I also brought a husband from Guatemala and a son from Mexico. Finally, a note on this industry, on the industry where this company, your company operates, tourism and travel. It's an industry that is very close and dear to my heart. For eight years, I ran Microsoft Spain. I am originally from Spain, as you know, tourism is a core for the country.
It represents over 13% of the gross national product, and I have worked and interact with almost every single group on the company that either operates from Spain or comes from Spain. With that, it is, as I said, an honor to be here, a pleasure to be here, and if I gain your trust to be selected to this board, I commit to apply all my experience and contribute to my full of my abilities. Thank you very much.
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Mrs. Garaña Corces, thank you very much for your introduction. Mrs. Arnold now will introduce herself in a video.
Good morning to Hanover shareholders. I'm very sorry that I'm not able to be with you in Hanover, but I had an appointment prior to that and I'm very glad about the opportunity to address you with a video message. I was born in Munich and I am a proud mother of two wonderful children, a son and a daughter, for 24 years. I have been working for SAP in a very dynamic environment and for several years I've been a CIO in the board of SAP and for four and a half years now I'm setting up an entirely new business model in Silicon Valley concerning digital business models. I'm also on the Supervisory Board of Heineken. What do TUI and I have in common?
We love to travel and we love to meet new cultures. From a technology perspective it is also very exciting because digitization is changing the industry and TUI Group really has a big potential in digitalization and they have to leverage that potential in order to secure their future. It's about digital marketplaces and business opportunities open up new markets and to create new customer experiences. I would love to make my contribution to speed up digital developments and due to my operating experience and responsibilities in SAP, and I would link up the visits to Germany associated to that to the Supervisory Board meeting. I would like to greet the Supervisory Board and I would like to thank you for your nomination, the head of it and the whole board. Have a good course of the annual general meeting. Thank you.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this concludes the report of the Supervisory Board. I like to thank the Management Board and the staff of the company also on behalf of the entire Supervisory Board for the excellent work done in 2019. Ladies and Gentlemen, I would now like to ask Mr. Joussen to give his report on the business of our company and the TUI Group. After that, Ms. Conix is going to talk about the annual accounts of 30. September 2019 and the report of the first quarter 2020 published today. Thank you.
Dr. Zetsche, thank you very much. Ladies and Gentlemen, dear shareholders. I'm very pleased to be here today and to be able to speak to you about the strategic projects of our company. I would also like to broach the topic of sustainability, because sustainability is exactly the topic which you can hear everywhere. This is also one of the purposes of our company and one of the focuses of our attention. Let me first have a look back at last year. Last year has been a year which was a very difficult year to cope with. There were enormous challenges to cope with. Dr. Zetsche mentioned it. He mentioned the 737 MAX, which I'm going to come back later on, the developments in the framework of Brexit, but also the insolvency of Thomas Cook due to the excessive capacity in the airline market.
This has led to major distortions and disruptions, but at the same time, the tourism industry has grown above the GDP, and we, as an integrated company, are very well positioned here. Let us now have a look at the figures. Our turnover last year rose by 2.7% to reach EUR 18.9 billion. This means that we have grown much, much stronger than the market as such, and a company that's growing and even growing at a larger rate than the market provides us with a good baseline for further growth. We had, unfortunately, to cope with a drop in the operative earnings. We had to accept a drop of approximately 26% to EUR 896 million. This includes the cost of the Boeing MAX. Taking this amount out, we would have been able to reach the same record high that we reached the previous year.
Now, after the insolvency of Thomas Cook, it becomes a very back behind us, and that's something that I'm going to cover soon. Now, we have the EUR 98 per share. That is in line with the EBIT and the 24%. Nevertheless, we want to give you a dividend payment of EUR 0.54. I think based on the 89% it does make sense. Now, due to the fact that the 737 is no longer available, I would like to discuss this with you. First of all, you can understand that the charges are high. Last year, it was approximately EUR 3 per million. This year, we just mentioned it this morning, we assume that this is going to be a major problem till the 1st of September. That means that this year, once again, approximately EUR 350 million will have to be added to the loss.
These are very high figures. At least this year, they are within the figures forecasted. That means it's something that doesn't come as a surprise. As far as operations are concerned, and this is something which is also important when you look at the operation, it means a major loss that we have to cope with this year. 55 airplanes will have to be replaced, which we will have to lease from the market or we'll have to buy in. As far as scheduled airlines are concerned, they have it much, much easier. They simply cancel a flight. This is something that we cannot do because our hotels would stay empty and our customers could not start their holidays. We always say safety is everything. Of course, another thing which is very important is to keep to our flight schedule.
That is very, very important to us. At the same time, it means that there is not much that we can change on a short-term basis. That means we have to cope with what is presented to us in terms of challenges, and we cannot come up with quick solutions. Nevertheless, I would like to establish the following thing. TUI is strong enough to cope with these dramatic effects, and that has not always been the case. The figures that I mentioned you were figures that are gross figures, no net figures. That means that compensation payments by Boeing have not been used and are not in the pipeline either. It means that the negotiations that are done at the moment are done with all seriousness. At the same time, one has to admit that one cannot start with any speculations.
Today, I was approached by investors, and I was approached by analysts as well, and they kept asking me, "Now what is the situation going to be like?" I couldn't answer these questions because this has something to do with protecting the interests of our company. We think we should start with the negotiations first and finish the negotiations and then talk about it. We do not want to stop at the moment. We cannot make any forecast because we do not know when the Boeing is going to be in the air again. Be assured that we are going to take these conversations very seriously. The third point, we are not going to have any strategic problems because we are continuing with the transformation of our company. It really shows that this incident does not stop us to keep transforming our company.
The last item I wanted to cover is the development of operative earnings. When we look at the bookings, we can see that our business is now doing very well after the insolvency of Thomas Cook. When we look at the bookings for the summer, for example, which are very important, we are looking very well. That is that the turnover in the summer months, which enjoy very high bookings. We have a plus of 70%. Here, once again, this is very important. This is something which is sustainable in the long run. This is why we decided we are going to invest into airplanes. If we didn't so, we would not be able to get the market share. Somebody else would be getting the market shares. That would hurt us in the long term.
This is why we are making an extra effort to make sure that we can follow this direction further, and it's really worth our efforts. At this point, I would like to express my gratitude to more than our 70,000 people working for us, because without their contribution, the financial year 2019 would have been much, much worse. When in March we noticed that the 737 would not be flying, everybody thought that the problem would be overcome very quickly. As you know, the machines were not available for the whole of the year, and that meant that we had to do some additional planning, that we had to look at how we could procure additional capacities. At the same time, we have to say that the market was really very tough to deal with.
I believe that our team has grown closer together, and they came up with solutions on behalf of our customers, which benefited the customers, and they showed high ethical values and a lot of commitment. I think this is not something that you can take for granted, considering the context they had to work in. I'm really proud to see that the NPS, that is the number of recommendations we get from our customers, was increased to 56%. Of course, it was due to the contributions of our staff. Our staff are our brand, our staff are TUI, and they did very well that year. I would like to thank you at this venture very much for what they've done, also on behalf of the Supervisory Board, and I think on behalf of all of you. Thank you very much.
Now let's have a look at the individual areas of business. First of all, hotels and resorts. There has an increase by 8% to EUR 452 million. The average rate per bed has been increased by three EUR. This is our main driver and we are very proud that we are 30% above the average earned in the industry. That means we don't just have a profitable growth, but when we look at our competition, we have very lucrative hotel companies. I'm going to come back to that when I come to the strategy. The same applies to cruise liners, where we were able to increase our EBIT by 13%. All companies have contributed to this increase. The average rates, despite the fact that the capacity was increased considerably, remained stable. Here, once again, in this line of industry, we are approximately 40% above the medium of the industry.
That means the most successful cruise companies are working with us. If you now look at destination experiences, that is all the activities that people can book when they go on their holidays. You can see that this area is one of the growth drivers in our portfolio. The number of excursions sold and other activities sold was double last year. That has something to do with organic growth, but not just with organic growth. You will remember that we bought in additional companies. On an operative level that is without the ramp-up losses. You remember the platform that we started with, a digitized platform. Our earnings was 44% above previous years. If we increase the ramp-up losses, it was still more than 20% here.
We make sure that we can ensure that we do not talk too much about profitability because the global market is a little bit sustained. If you want to consolidate on a global level, we have to grow and we have to grow quickly enough. This is one of our main strategic targets that we want to reach. The market of airlines. First of all, we were able to maintain and even improve our leading market position. That is the increase in June. Then was the problem with the 737 MAX. In addition, there was the competition, which was very tough. Altogether, the earnings were decreased by EUR 293 million. You know exactly what the problem is, and I am going to cover this later on. The excess capacities was the reason why Thomas Cook could not cope.
It was the problem that they looked exactly like TUI, and we simply have to define a proper strategy to make sure that we are not going to end up as one of the dinosaurs in the industry. Of course, we thought about this very carefully today. Nobody can compare with us because today, 80% of our profits are based on cruise liners and hotels. Nevertheless, we cannot just stand still. We have to move forward and try to do more. This is why I would like to talk now about our strategy. Now, first of all, what is the baseline? We are the market leader in those markets where we are working. We make sure that we can offer the activities for 21 million customers.
That means we are a major player, but we are working in the tourist industry, and these are markets which offer a lot of potential for growth. We have a turnover of EUR 800 per customer, much more than the cheap airliners. This is really very important when it comes to look at acquisitions, because very often the acquisition and the turnover that comes with it, has not always something to do with the profit. This is a good brand that we have. We can differentiate through our product portfolio and have a high profitability when it comes to hotels and cruises. I just gave you the benchmark figures, 30% against our competition or 40% against our competition.
What is so good about it is that we do not do that by having high prices, but we do so as a rule by having a high demand. That is, we are just better suited to achieve vertical integration. We have a lot of customers in many different source markets. For example, we have more than 80% or 85% of capacity in our beds and our hotels. Of course, that is very important when it comes to the cruise ships. It is more than 100% of the capacities which are being utilized. This is good. This is within our system. That is very good. You could say, well, this looks good as far as our strategies are concerned. Nevertheless, there are four areas where we have to work on. The first field that we have to do has something to do with markets and airlines.
That is where the Boeing is situated. What we have to do here is to try to maintain our market share, or even better say, try to enlarge them. This will only be possible if we are able to have competitive costs, and that we will never get into a situation that somebody comes up with prices which are below our cost level, so that we can no longer compete with everybody else in the market. We have to have a very good cost position, and we have to make sure that we can come up with innovations to make sure that the changes in the demands of our customers will be reflected in our offerings. David Burling and Frank Rosenberger, my colleagues, are in charge of the marketing domain transformation. They are doing that.
They are making sure that all systems and all processes across all markets are built together so that they can be implemented in the global cloud. That is, we make it available in the global cloud. This is a project which is supposed to be implemented by mid-next year. This is the largest transformation process within the history of our group. What's important here is to make sure that everybody feels part of it, and to make sure that this change is being implemented in such a sense that it has a positive effect on our team. This is, of course, a major challenge for Elke and everybody else. Let me explain what I mean when I talk about costs. Let me explain to you what I mean when I talk about innovation. At the moment, we spend EUR 20 million for web and back-end software.
That is the software which controls tui.com. EUR 20 million a year for six markets. The largest markets where we are active is the U.K. market. This accounts for six of these 21. In other words, if we did it all at once in a standardized fashion, the innovation speed could be doubled, let's say from six to 12, and still save about 50% of our cost. As you can see, this is something which is absolutely feasible. You simply have to do things. The second point I want to mention has something to do with innovation here. We want to have a very personalized approach to our customers. We have a customer relationship management system, CRM system, where each individual customer has their profile.
That means that they receive emails with offerings of which we think they may be more interesting to them than just an average standard offer. That really does work very well. Now, these systems have to be changed so that they become real-time feasible. What does that mean? If you don't want to continue with the emails, but if you want to use an app in the future, it means that you've got this customized offer. The customer looks at the offering and responds, of course. That means that you've got the full attention of the customer focusing on the offering as soon as he responds.
If you can respond in real time and come back with a good answer for the customer in real time by trying to sharpen up the profile of the offering or offer something in addition, of course, it means that you have made the best of the attention of the customers. You're not able to respond in real time, and it takes you some hours before it can process all this information, the customer has put the mobile phone aside. That means that it's going to create a real big advantage for us if we can do so. At the same time, it means that it requires high investment. If you wanted to do it sixfold in different markets, it would be much too expensive or you would simply not invest at all.
Once again, I just wanted to point out that it's not just something about cost, but it has something to do with investment. You simply have to make sure that you've got standardized systems that you build only once and implement in a global cloud. Let's have a look at the second item of the strategy, that is hotels and cruise ships. Asset-light. What does that mean? We have more than 400 hotels and more than 18 cruise liners. I mentioned it earlier, and I said that we are very successful there. That means that the profitability across our industry is really very high. What we are doing at the moment is that we want to consolidate our brands in order to improve our profitability and to speed up growth. We want to invest only if we really have to do that. That's what we call asset-light.
If we don't have to invest, we would rather have a look at existing hotels and try to incorporate them into our brand. A good example is the consolidation of Hapag-Lloyd into TUI Cruises. This is something we announced last week. Each company on their own would not have been able to grow TUI Cruises simply because they do not have the capacities for the shipyards for these large cruise liners and Hapag-Lloyd because this is a brand which is only available in the German market and is a luxury brand. You destroy any luxury brand if you've got too much of a capacity. That means that this brand has to grow on an international level, and we cannot finance it through our balance sheet.
We are now going to integrate both brands, that we both now have the potential for growth and can, at the same time, produce a lot of synergies of more than EUR 300 million. At the same time, this transaction is going to give us additional cash. In the final analysis, this means that if we merge both companies, we will have more assets, we will grow much quicker, and we will produce more synergies. This is really a very good asset-light business. Let's have a look at the hotels here. The team surrounding Sebastian Ebel is focusing on RIU and TUI Blue. I think of Robinson, for example, and Magic Life. These are individual hotel portfolios. Here we have 100 TUI Blue hotels. Last summer it was only 10. What we want to achieve is to open up this system to third-party hotels.
That is, we are going to open up the brand to hotels outside the TUI Group and market it to them. We hope to be able to grow doing that. We are not going to primarily invest into real estate and hotels, but we just want to invest into improving the standards. That means that the 21 million customers in our source markets and the brands are so attractive these days that third-party hotels are really interested in becoming a member of the TUI Group. Now, when we look at the booking system that we're using at the moment, Amadeus, we decided that we need to add two more components, which are already part of the roadmap. They are so interesting for the hotels that by looking at the brand and the 21 million customers, they think they would like to work together with us more closer.
What we want to do in order to achieve this is build a kind of Amadeus platform for hotels. How do we do this? We will have two platforms. This is the GDN, a global distribution network, and the second one a PMS, that is a property management system. That means that is a system which helps you to manage the rooms that you have in your hotel and helps you to commercialize them. Let's have a quick look at these two components. GDN, the global distribution network. Here we focus on source markets where we don't have any history. That is not in England and not in the Nordic country, but China, Brazil, Malaysia, but also Spain and Portugal, because in Spain and Portugal, they've always been our target markets, but we never had Spanish guests who we booked their holidays for.
This is now going to be part of the distribution system. As far as the function is concerned, this is going to concern the markets where we can market hotel capacities. When we look back at our history, we always had a full package deal, and we sold everything as a package deal. What we want to do now is to offer individual hotel rooms, for example. Next weekend, there's a room that's going to be available. How do I get a customer to fill that vacancy? With the help of this platform, which by the way is a cloud-based platform and AI-based, this is something that I mentioned, 2017, we want to enlarge this platform. The second item is a property management system. This is a system which offers a completely different type of products.
It is based on the accommodation per night. All the other systems are based on room categories. For example, you can book a room with a sea view or something else. It is very easy when you go on a platform like Booking.com and say, "I would like to have a room with a sea view or not." Everybody knows that not every room simply is the same, simply because they have a sea view or they have a garden view. This is why we now want to differentiate our marketing and concentrate on each of the features of each room. Each room can have a different price. You can say, well, each night in a room can have a different night. What is the advantage of doing it that way? For us and for the customer, it will have advantages.
I will give you an example. If you have a hotel and you know that a room is sold for EUR 100, they know still there's one room left which is empty. The manager of the hotel doesn't know, had it been possible to sell the 10 rooms for EUR 120, I would say seven of the rooms he could have offered for EUR 120. That means that EUR 20 per night for each of these rooms are wasted. If you are able to come up with a differentiated marketing so that each individual room has a different price level, then of course, there's the opportunity for the hotel manager to make more money. The question is, why should the customer be prepared to pay more? There must be an advantage for the customer as well.
It shows you that there's also some benefit for the customer, which we have at the moment for the three TUI Blue houses, for example, 13% of our customers buy a special room that they want to have. For example, I want to have the room 31 because it has a sea view, it is very close to the beach, for example. If the customer is disabled, they want to have a room which is located closely to the elevator, or if you have a children's club somewhere, you want a room which is close to the children's club. This is a specific request that the customer can make, and at the moment it is an extra EUR 15 per night and per room. Of course, I have to be able not to market categories, but to market these rooms for what they are.
We have hotels which have categories of rooms based on what I just explained, a sea view with sun in the morning or the sun in the evening. Who would have thought of that before? If you give the opportunity to the manager to do that because he knows that people like the sun in the evening, then it's something that you can do. I spoke to another manager recently, and he would say that you have a room which is close to a restaurant that people don't like.
He came up with a category where he said, "We will have a baby phone which is going to be covered when you are at the restaurant." I think this is another aspect that you could market, and you become much, much more inventive if you have individual categories for the different rooms, so that each room becomes a marketable object. This is possible with the system that we have with 21 customers, with the global distribution network, which can actually cover all the markets worldwide, and supported by a software which makes it possible that you have a much more differentiated approach to the sales of the rooms, which is much better than categories. We think this will help us to gain a major edge in the market. Now, the last item has something to do with our platform, One Million Things to Do.
At the moment, we have a market for EUR 150 million. That is a 7% increase, 350,000 offers. We are now going to consolidate the market, and as I just mentioned, we are now going to make sure that we concentrate on our destination experiences to drive growth. We have a very good benchmark that we start from, which other competition doesn't have. That is our advantage as compared to the competition. It's always important to have some advantage as compared to the competition. We are not starting from scratch, but we do have 21 million customers. We sold 10,000 activities in this area last year. We are already leading, but of course, we want to grow more. The second point, as a rule, the customers book well in advance.
For example, if you have somebody going to Egypt, we know that four months in advance that this customer wants to go to Egypt, and we can already start with the marketing of our activities. Whereas our competition is still sitting there and waiting and hoping for customers to book their hotel rooms. They don't know that, but we do. Another thing is we do have 10,000 people locally, and if you don't just sell standard tickets for museum access, for example, like for example, a hot balloon ride in front of the Atlas Mountains, then you want to make sure that this is assured locally that this exists, and that will help you with the sales. We believe that these three aspects will help us to give us an edge over our competition in the market and will help us to consolidate globally.
All in all, we hope that the 21 million customers that we have now will be increased to 30 million customers, and not only when it comes to events, but we take the whole package that is cruise ships, hotels, and so on. This growth is mainly supposed to be an organic growth, and it requires a certain amount of investment, of course. We want to be very conservative when it comes to our balance sheet. That means we want to reduce our debts. We have a specific allocation strategy, which is going to be covered by Birgit Conix soon, will help us to achieve this. I think this is why the new policy of a dividend payment makes a lot of sense, because it will help us to achieve all the different targets that we have set ourselves for the transformation process.
Let me have a quick look at sustainability. Sustainability is very important for our line of industry. It's important for our company. As you can see here, when you look at the individual tiles, you can see they are all based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals. That means we did not just come up with an imaginative framework, but we rather decided to use a framework which is already in place. Make sure you speak the language that everybody understands. This is our framework, and this framework tells us there is an ecological sustainability, an economic sustainability and ecological sustainability. This framework also tells us if you look at one sustainability, one type of sustainability, you have to have the other two, too. Somebody who's only interested in food is not going to look in at the environment.
Somebody who can have a career is not going to look at what effect it may have on the environment. I think it's really very important that we look at all of these different aspects together. If you now see what this means for tourism, it becomes evident very, very clearly that tourism in this context can be very, very sustainable here. This is comparison between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Those two countries are based on the same island as you can see here. This is in the Caribbean. That is the island, which you can find these two states, and they have approximately the same amount of population of roughly 11 million. The only difference is that one of them have 6.2 million tourists, and the other have 470,000 tourists. That is the main difference. Look at the individual categories, which are listed here.
That is poverty line is reduced, income is increased, education is improved, the infant mortality rate decreases. There's better access to medical care. There's better access to clean water. That is important. The population is happy, much happier than before. When you go to the bottom of the line, you can see that is really the thing which may come as a big surprise. Even the change in the forest areas has been minus 20% in Haiti and in the other state where you have got all the tourism plus 80%. It has improved by 80%. That shows something very clearly. If you haven't got any food to eat, you fell the trees and to use them. If you have tourists, nobody would even come up with the idea of felling the palms, which are so attractive for tourists and attract them to the island.
Even if you look at everything from ecological aspects, and this is something that I did here, picking those two countries because it makes it very clear what it means. I could give you the same example for North Africa. I could give you another example. For example, for Cape Verde or in all these countries and all the countries where you've got tourism, where you've got a certain amount of investment, you have a certain amount of affluence, and in all of these countries, you will notice that people take more care of the environment. That means that tourism as such is sustainable. It makes sure that economic, ecological, and social sustainability are assured. It makes it possible for societies to have a fair share in wealth.
Without it, there would be a much larger discrepancy in the way of life between the people and also on a global level. I think this is something which has become very clear. Now let's come to TUI. Now, sustainability for our company has always been a major factor in our company here. This is a page from our Business Report. Our sustainability strategy is not just concentrated on ecology, but it's also concentrating on the economy and social standards. We are making standards for the tourist industry. When it comes to social sustainability, for example, we founded the TUI Care Foundation, which with more than 30 projects in more than 25 countries, offers training project that help startups. For example, I recently went to Marrakech. I mentioned a social entrepreneur who makes sure that children are taken off the street and trains them to become guides.
In Marrakech, for example, in Agadir, in Taghazout. This is not something which is highly sophisticated, you may think, but it's still something where people can have an income and make sure they can live. As far as economic sustainability is concerned, we are usually the largest investor in target areas and make sure there's a proper base for the economy. In most countries, we are the partner who's been there the longest. If you remember two years ago, there was a warning against travel in Egypt and what happens there? The Egypt authorities call us. They want to know what's happening, simply because we usually have much better information about the situation because the politicians there who put in their position recently. We've been working together with Egypt more than 50 years, with Spain and Greece even longer.
That means that we have long-standing interests and long-standing investments, we always make sure that we have proper information. Of course, we make sure that ecological sustainability is also assured. If you look at the left-hand side in the top line, we have the most efficient fleets in the world, we are number four from all the fleets in the world. Of course, it has something to do with the fact that our airplanes are hardly ever empty, it's a very efficient fleet. There's also 83% of our hotels that have obtained sustainability certificates now. I just want to make a general statement here on this point once again, this is supposed to be a contribution to discussion. It's not supposed to be an excuse that we are not doing anything.
I think we are doing a lot, and I'm going to tell you that this is something that we want to do, continue in the future. We have a new strategy, 2030, Sustainability 2030, which I am going to cover next time. That means that we are not going to let down in our efforts. As far as sustainability is concerned, I would like to say the following. If you look at this chart now, what you can see is the following. The CO2 emissions, that is on the line on the left-hand side and on the perpendicular line. On the other line, you can see the gross, the GDP. This is really a correlation between those two items. That means that CO2 emissions are always in proportion to the wealth of a country.
They are the highest for the people in Europe and Canada and in China, India, and Africa. This value is the lowest, which you can see on the far left. One must expect that while affluence will grow, emissions will grow at the same time at the same rate. This is actually happening if you look at the situation in these countries there, because people want to live somewhere, they want to heat their houses, they want to eat, just like everybody, and I must say, if I go to China, I can't tell them, "This is not something you should do." If it's something that you want to provide to millions of people, then you can see where the problem is. Now let's have a look at the next graph, and let's look at the reasons for this.
Now you can see that the main reasons have to do with electricity consumption, with road traffic, and these are exactly the areas where you have growth in China. When you look at the air traffic, which you can see on the right-hand side with 2.8%, this is really a small figure. Of course, that doesn't mean that there's no room for improvement. We will always have to renew our fleet. Now, for each new fleet, you will have a reduction in CO2 emissions of 15%. There's also something that we call the European air corridor, which is not that efficient, because for 20 years we've been trying to create a Single European Sky. That means that you don't have to go through different countries if you want to go south.
That alone would cut emissions by 15%, so that means there's a lot that you can do if you want to. Here, once again, if you just look in Europe, if we want to reduce the number of flights in Europe, and at the same time look at the 160 airports that are being built in China or are in the pipeline of being built, it's not going to achieve anything. Irrespective of what we do here, it will not help us to reduce the CO2 emissions considerably. I think what we can do here is innovation. We need new fuels, which are not based on fossil fuels, with Power-to-Liquid. There's hydrogen. We do have new technologies, but the marketability, of course, that's a different factor. It's still a very expensive product. We have to make sure is to support the marketability of this product.
Maybe it makes sense to introduce a CO2 tax. What we need in the final analysis is innovation. As far as the air industry is concerned, what concerns the industry is something that we have to do in general. When we come up with a solution, it has to be a global solution. It can only be efficient if we come up with innovations because we have to make sure that affluent will no longer be directly linked to the amount of CO2 emissions. Hydrogen can play a major part to replace fossil fuels. For the hydrogen production, you do need CO2. That means there's a certain amount of recycling of CO2 involved in the process, and the hydrogen that you need has to be green and has to be produced as competitive cost, that is less than EUR 2 per kilowatt hour.
From the technical point of view, this is feasible. Only if we achieve such a figure will we be able to reduce the exploration of fossil fuels, like for example, gas or oil. As long as hydrogen is too expensive, there will always be people who will make sure that they extract oil. If it is extracted somewhere, anywhere, and we don't want to use it in Europe, somebody will use it, and it will be emitted into the atmosphere. That means that we need hydrogen for less than EUR 2 per kilowatt-hour. That means we have to make the right savings, and we have to create the right context for innovation and make sure that we do not continue to bank on fossil fuels. I believe that hydrogen is going to be the future.
I'm an engineer by training, and I've been looking into it for a long time. In our Sustainability Strategy 2030, we are going to look at efficiency, that means savings, and innovation. Now, to conclude, I must say it was a difficult year. I think TUI has done well, especially considering that our largest competitor became bankrupt. Now we are facing a new transformation process. We have to become a digitized platform company. A very demanding thing to do, but it will be successful. We have a team of people who are willing to do their best and who want to be successful. A strategy can only be successful in the long run if all the stakeholders are happy with what they are doing. That is the shareholders, the staff, the customers, and the company as a whole. Now, I concentrated mainly on society as a whole.
We always have been a predecessor when it came to sustainability. I'm very proud of this. We want to continue to be a predecessor for new developments, and for that, we are working very hard. Now to conclude, I would like to thank everybody in our company for what they have done because they are our brand, they are important for our customers. Without them, we wouldn't be what we are, and the same gratitude goes to our shareholders. Thank you very much for being part of our company, and thank you very much for being here today. Now I hand the floor to Birgit.
Thank you, Mr. Joussen. Hello, good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'd like to welcome you most warmly to our annual general meeting. As you know, the financial year 2019 was the first year in this position for me. Friedrich Joussen already mentioned it in his speech, the impact of external factors on our business posed particular challenges in 2019. The good news is that our hotels and cruise ships continued to develop very positively in the financial year 2019. In contrast, our markets and airline division was severely impacted by the market environment and, in particular, by the flight ban on the Boeing 737, which was imposed in March 2019. Therefore, we had to adjust our earnings expectations in the financial year 2019 in two steps.
On the 6th of February 2019, we reduced our earnings expectations for the financial year 2019 to the level of the financial year 2018. The reasons were shorter bookings as a result of the hot summer of 2018, an oversupply in the aircraft sector, a shift in demand from the western to the eastern Mediterranean region, and the uncertainty around the Brexit and the weakness of the sterling. On the 29th of March 2019, we again had to adjust our earnings forecast for the financial year 2019 due to the flight ban for the Boeing 737. Unfortunately, we were unable to use this aircraft type for the rest of the financial year 2019. This carried along one-off charges for replacement aircraft, higher fuel costs in connection with business interruptions, and negative effects on the operating business.
In total, we had one-off cost effects of around EUR 290 million, which resulted to a reduction of the underlying EBITDA for the financial year 2019 of around 26%. Despite the persistent challenges, we met our adjusted forecast for the underlying EBITDA. For all other key indicators, we even achieved our originally set target. This applies above all to our free cash flow and our net debt. Also our relative leverage ratio, the so-called Group's leverage ratio, remains also within our long-term range at a factor of 3.0. Thus, it could enable us to largely offset the negative effect in the markets and airlines divisions. Let me now first present the key performance indicators for the financial year 2019. The underlying EBITDA of the EBITDA declined by 22% to around EUR 893 million in the financial year 2019.
On a constant currency basis, this represents a decline of almost 26%. This development was in line with our adjusted earnings expectations for the financial year 2019. I've already mentioned the difficult market environment. Our holiday experience business, this means our hotels and cruise ships and also our, for example, range of excursions and activities, continue to develop very well. Our diversified positioning enabled us to offset the normalized demand for our Spanish hotels by an increasing occupancy rate at our hotels in North Africa and Turkey. Our markets and airlines developed more weakly than originally expected. In particular, the flight ban on the Boeing 737 MAX resulted in a charge on burden of around EUR 290 million. Group sales increased by 2.7% on a year-on-year basis to EUR 18.9 billion and was in line with our expectations.
Adjusted by the sales generated in the year 2019, the acquired destination management and amusement turnover would have been at the previous year's level. The one-off effects in the underlying EBITDA were around EUR 125 million and met our expectations. The group's net interest expense decreased by approximately EUR 12 million to EUR 77 million. As in the previous year, this figure includes also our one-off interest income. We have eliminated these effects in both years to calculate the core earnings per share. At EUR 691 million, our earnings before taxes were around EUR 275 million lower. This was mainly due to the flight ban of the Boeing 737 MAX. The reported tax rates in 2019 has risen slightly compared to the previous year. This was due to the revaluation of taxes loss carried forward.
The adjusted tax rate fell by a further two percentage points year-on-year from 20% to 18%. This is due to the further increase in the relative earnings contributions of the holiday experience division. Earnings from continuing operations reached around EUR 532 million in the last financial year. In the financial year 2019, the group had no discontinued operations. In the previous year, this item included income from, in connection with the divestiture of Hotelbeds Group. In the reported year, the share of non-controlling shareholders in consolidated net amounted to EUR 116 million and related primarily to the RIU Group. Two shareholders accounted for group profit after minority interest of EUR 416 million. At EUR 0.89, our adjusted earnings per share show a decrease of 23% and thus follow the operating development in the year.
Far, the notes referring to the income statement, and let me now briefly discuss our financial stability indicators. As you know, we use the cash inflow from divestments of non-core businesses to further finance our growth in the hotel and cruise business. As a result, the group's net liquidity reported at the end of the financial year 2018 declined in 2019 in line with our expectations. At the end of the financial year 2019, the group's net debt amounted to EUR 0.9 billion. At a factor of 3.0, the debt-to-equity ratio is within the range that we are aiming on the long term. The slight increase in the factor compared to the previous year is in particular, due to the impact of the flight ban of the Boeing 737 MAX.
Without this special effect, the debt coverage ratio would have been at the level of the previous year with a factor of 2.7, despite the continuation of our investment program. The calculated equity ratio as of the 30th of September 2019 was 25.6% and almost two percentage points below the previous year figure. The external rating of the group by the two agencies, Standard & Poor's and Moody's, did not change in the last year. However, Moody's adjusted its ratings in December due to the uncertainty around the flight ban on the Boeing 737 MAX. Currently, we have a rating at S&P of BB, and from Moody's, we have Ba3. Both have a negative outlook. We are in a very good exchange with the rating agencies and have initiated internal measures to further strengthen our financial profile.
This also includes our adjusted dividend policy, which I would like to discuss in the following chart. Of course, we cannot decouple completely from the development of external conditions. Let me first explain our dividend proposal for the last financial year and our updated dividend policy. Based on the dividend of EUR 0.72 per TUI AG share passed in the last financial year and a decline in operating earnings by almost 26%, we propose a dividend of EUR 0.54 per share for this financial year. Okay. Against the background of the intended further transformation of the group, we have developed a new framework for our capital allocation. This framework defines the order of priority as follows. First, we intend to continue to grow organically in our hotel and cruise business. We also want to achieve this together with our joint venture partners.
Secondly, we want to significantly expand our digital platforms as Fritz Joussen has already set out. In the future, we want also to pay you as our shareholders a reliable and attractive dividend. The third pillar in our capital allocation is the optimization of our current investment portfolio, for example, through value-enhancing mergers or acquisitions. A good example of this is the transfer of Hapag-Lloyd Cruises to TUI Cruises, as already mentioned by Fritz Joussen. Should the group sustainably have more liquidity available in the future than is necessary to achieve the priorities, we will return this surplus to you as shareholders. At the same time, we will be disciplined to maintain a solid balance sheet. We, therefore, continue to aim for a debt coverage ratio of 2.25x or 2x-3x . Okay, now the realignment of capital allocation offers TUI Group greater flexibility.
It enables investments in our strategic initiatives and future growth opportunities and an attractive dividend to our shareholders. At the same time, the framework is underpinned by a sound and robust financial structure. As of the financial year 2020, we will propose you a core dividend. The new dividend will amount to 30%-40% of the underlying group profit, which will then be attributable to the TUI AG shareholders, but at least EUR 0.35 per share. Our new dividend policy will lead to lower payouts, but the lower dividend limit of EUR 0.35 per share will guarantee then a minimum payout. As our shareholders, you will receive this regardless of the tourism market environment. This is important based on the TUI share price at the end of the financial year 2019, the lower dividend limit would have corresponded to a dividend yield of 3.3%.
We are convinced that a core dividend combined with a lower dividend limit is an attractive and balanced dividend policy for TUI and you as our shareholders. Good. This brings me to the current business development in the first quarter of this financial year and to our assessment for the full year 2020. First, a technical note. I'm sorry. Like other groups, we are applying in the financial year 2020 the new IFRS Standard 16 for the recognition of leasings. This is described in detail in the annual report. Since we will not retroactively adjust the figures for the past financial year, 2019, we will always then disclose in the financial year 2020, for example, how the figures would have developed without the application of IFRS 16. For the better comparability, we have also prepared our guidance for the financial year 2020 without the effect of this new standard.
This new outlook does not include, for example, the sale of Hapag-Lloyd Cruises to TUI Cruises. Starting in the financial year 2020, we will also be replacing the previously used earnings indicator underlying EBITA with the adjusted EBIT. Without the A. In the first quarter of the new financial year 2020, the adjusted EBIT of the group increased by around EUR 64 million to a seasonal loss of minus EUR 140.70 million. This figure includes also, for example, an effect of EUR 45 million from the flight ban on Boeing 737 MAX. As expected, we have started weaker to the new financial year, but this was expected. Bookings for our winter program rose in the first quarter. As a result, our markets and airlines division achieved a stable result without taking into account the effect resulting from the flight ban on the 737 MAX.
The previous year, we had also a positive one-off effect from the unwinding of the currency hedge. This is included. The operating development is even clearly positive. The holiday and experience division reported in the segment of hotels and resorts weaker results. This was mainly due to higher costs resulting from the increasing number of hotels in our grown portfolio that we closed during the winter season. In the cruises segment, TUI Cruises benefited strongly from the capacity expansion in the previous year, while Marella Cruises then reported a weaker development due to higher costs and also Hapag-Lloyd Cruises due to shipyards then. Now the outlook to the current financial year 2020. As we have now a strong trading in our different segments, we expect then a one-digit growth.
On the basis of the guidance, which we determined in the beginning of 2020, then we would have then, for example, been able to limit the burden, the costs around EUR 220 million, and we would have then got, for example, and then EUR 1,055 million of income and the effect of the MAX was already included there. Okay, the next slide. Due to the most recent declaration of Boeing, we have now tried to get replacement capacities. This corresponds to the second scenario of our guidance in December 2019. We included the additional costs for the flight ban here for the whole financial year, and we increased this from EUR 25 million-EUR 220 million up to EUR 245 million. There's a small problem with the slide, sorry. Maybe I can continue. Maybe you could continue now.
The complete costs of Boeing are not considered in this range, as we expect that these effects will be also then compensated by the strong trading, by cost measures, and also by a certain compensation of Boeing. As before, the range in the guidance includes also, for example, also an investment of two digits of millions for our development of our platform. Now we expect an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 850 million-EUR 1,050 million. Please now allow me to make a brief comment at this point. The flight ban is a significant burden for TUI, which we cannot influence in the short term. However, what we can do as a company is to initiate countermeasures with the aim to minimizing the impact on the cash flow and our financial profile. We are working on this with all our strength.
Our forecast also includes expenses for the expansion of our digital platforms in the mid- to high double-digit EUR million range. These are initiatives which already have been presented by Fritz Joussen. Finally, a brief comment on the coronavirus. At present, we do not see any significant impact from the virus on our outlook as we have only minor activities in the affected regions. Of course, we observe these developments very closely in order to ensure the safety of our customers and employees at all times. The further development of the TUI Group in this challenging market environment, as expected by us, demonstrate the successful transformation into an integrated provider of holiday experiences. Our strategic positioning combines our own hotel brands with cruise brands and strong omni-channel distribution capabilities, and we are diversified across all markets and destinations.
We will focus on this in the next year to become more competitive and selectively expand our holiday experience business and develop our digital platforms in new markets and destinations.
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to make a few comments on the authorization proposed to the annual general meeting under item six. As in the previous years, we ask you to pass a resolution on the acquisition and use of own shares. This proposal for resolution is intended to safeguard the company's financial room for maneuver. Together with the existing further authorizations, we will be in a position to adjust our capitalization to financial requirements and quickly and flexibly.
The term of the proposed authorization pursuant to agenda item six is again to be 16 months. Acquisition transactions under the terms of that agreement may only be concluded in the period up to the next annual general meeting in 2021. For the last 12 months, the company has not made any use of the existing authorization. It has not acquired any TUI shares. The company, therefore, does not hold any own shares. Under the new authorization, up to 7% of the share capital, but not more than around 29.5 million of shares of the company may be acquired through the stock exchange or by means of a public offer to the shareholders. The principle of equal treatment under the stock corporation law must always be observed.
Apart from the requirements of the German Stock Corporation Act, the proposed resolution also takes account of requirements arising from the listing of the TUI share on the London Stock Exchange and the corporate governance standards there. There's currently no intention to acquire own shares. If the annual general meeting approves the proposed authorization, the Management Board will examine the use of this possibility from time to time, and it will only be used if the Management Board is convinced that this is in the interest both of the company and all shareholders.
As a matter of principle, the Executive Board will only make use of authorizations with the option to exclude the subscription right to issue new shares or to use previously acquired treasury shares with the approval of the Supervisory Board and the strict requirements for the exclusion of the subscription rights set forth in the German Stock Corporation Act are met. We ask you to support this resolution. Sorry for the last slide, which did not appear. Thank you very much for your attention.