FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Mexico is relying on travelers from countries like Russia and Brazil to boost its tourism numbers this year after the drug war plaguing the country deterred U.S. visitors, its largest source of tourists.

The number of international tourists arriving on flights is expected to rise between 9 and 10 percent this year from the 22.7 million in 2011, Tourism Minister Gloria Guevara told Reuters in an interview in Frankfurt.

“We are diversifying by promoting culture and gastronomy and broadening the base of nationalities who visit,” she said. “Before we were too dependent on the U.S., and sun and sand.”

She said international arrivals by air had risen 7 percent between January and March, with tourist numbers from Brazil up 70.5 percent and Russia up 63 percent, helped by easier visa application processes.

The rise in tourists from Russia is similar to that seen in Tunisia and Egypt after the Arab Spring uprisings shattered bookings from traditional markets like Britain, France and Germany, while the increased spending power of the Brazilians has made them attractive consumers.

However, the arrival figures given by the minister do not include ‘excursionists’ – those coming in via car across the U.S-Mexico border.

While the number of people flying in has increased over the last few years, arrivals from across the border have slumped from around 80 million in the early 2000s to under 60 million, according to ministry statistics.

FRANKFURT, May 17 (Reuters) – The opening of Berlin’s new airport has been pushed back nine months to March 17 after problems with fire safety systems, dealing an embarrassing blow to the German capital and angering airlines.

Manfred Koertgen, the airport’s managing director for technical issues, has been sacked and will leave the role on June 1, Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit told reporters on Thursday.

“He had trouble recognising when things were going wrong,” Wowereit said.

Berlin Brandenburg had been scheduled to open on June 3. On May 8, authorities said that opening was being delayed.

The capital’s long-awaited new airport, which will be Germany’s third largest behind Frankfurt and Munich, will replace Tegel and Schoenefeld, both dating from the Cold War.

Wowereit said the three largest airlines due to operate from the new airport – Air Berlin, Deutsche Lufthansa and easyJet – would do everything possible to maintain flight schedules at the city’s existing airports.

The three had planned to use the new airport to expand services from Berlin, in particular Air Berlin which had hoped to use the new BBI airport as a hub for long-haul with the help of its largest shareholder, Gulf-based airline Etihad.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German travel and tourism group TUI AG said demand for holidays in North Africa was recovering, as it reported a smaller than expected second-quarter loss.

“The situation in Tunisia is especially encouraging, but we are seeing some pick-up in Egypt too,” Chief Financial Officer Horst Baier told analysts on Thursday.

Tour operators such as Europe’s largest TUI Travel (TT.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), controlled by TUI AG, and Thomas Cook (TCG.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) were hit hard last year as European tourists shied away from North African destinations like Tunisia and Egypt following uprisings.

Tourists are now returning, though numbers are not expected to recover to pre-uprising levels until next year or even longer for Egypt.

Tour operators are also battling a drop of around 30 percent in bookings to Greece from Germans, the world’s biggest spenders on foreign holidays, who have been put off by anti-German sentiment following the country’s financial bailout.

“I regret this situation very much and I really cross my fingers that people are coming back and decide to book a holiday in Greece,” Baier said.

TUI AG (TUIGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) reported a second quarter loss of 224 million euros, compared with expectations for a loss of 245 million euros in a Reuters poll.

FRANKFURT, May 9 (Reuters) – German consumer goods company Henkel said more price increases would help it meet its 2012 guidance as it reported a slow return to sales growth at its adhesives unit in the first quarter.

While industrial adhesives were a bright spot for companies such as Henkel and local rival Beiersdorf last year, Henkel in March said its adhesives business was slowing as customers in China used up stock.

The company said on Wednesday that sales growth in the division had improved to 5.6 percent from 4.2 percent in the previous quarter.

“The adhesives business in China has improved, but it is still slightly negative,” Chief Executive Kasper Rorsted told analysts. “But we expect the situation to improve in the summer and for it to be positive for the year as a whole.”

Adhesive peers 3M and ITW also showed signs of weaker business in Asia in the first quarter.

Henkel, whose brands include Persil in most of Europe and Schwarzkopf hair products, stuck to its guidance for an adjusted operating return on sales of 14 percent in 2012 even as global economies slow and raw material price increases cause headaches for the consumer goods sector.

“We remain committed to counteracting the effects of rising raw material prices,” Chief Financial Officer Lothar Steinebach told analysts on Wednesday.

FRANKFURT, May 3 (Reuters) – Germany’s Metro, the world’s fourth largest retailer, slipped into a loss at the start of the year as it invested in new products and services to encourage cash-strapped shoppers in Europe to part with their cash.

Metro, which runs cash & carries, hypermarkets, consumer electronics and department stores, on Thursday reported an operating loss of 9 million euros ($11.8 million)for the first three months of 2012, confounding expectations for a profit of almost 50 million.

The Duesseldorf, Germany-based group said the first quarter result was hurt by heavy investments such as the website for its Media-Saturn chain of electronics stores — an attempt to lure some of the increasing numbers of consumers who do their shopping online — and also the delivery service at its cash & carry division.

“The first quarter is in no way indicative for the rest of the year,” Chief Executive Olaf Koch said, highlighting that the period only accounts for about 5 percent of annual profits.

“For the second quarter, we want to make progress on sales and deliver an improvement in earnings,” he added.

Silvia Quandt analyst Mark Josefson said he believed the investment would pay off in the coming quarters.

“The delivery service is going great guns and the expansion of their own brand range should be supportive going forward,” he said.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Adidas (ADSGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the world’s second-biggest sporting goods company, raised its 2012 profit forecast after outperforming rivals Nike and Puma in the key Chinese market as shoppers there snapped up its trademark three-stripe sneakers.

Adidas shares jumped to a record-high on the news, as investors brushed aside the German company’s warning that “commercial irregularities” at its Reebok unit in India could cost it almost 200 million euros ($265 million).

In an unscheduled announcement to update investors on its new expectations as well as the problems in India, Adidas said sales in China soared 26 percent on a currency-neutral basis in the first quarter, helping it to top sales and profit forecasts.

Smaller rival Puma (PUMG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) last week missed first-quarter earnings forecasts, citing “mediocre” results in China and caution among austerity-hit European shoppers.

Nike (NKE.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the world’s No.1 sporting goods company, last month reported a currency-neutral 21 percent rise in Chinese sales for its third-quarter to end-February.

Silvia Quandt analyst Mark Josefson said the sales rise for Adidas in China suggested the “problems seen by competitors in the region were partly caused by the strength of Adidas.”

Adidas said it now expects sales to rise in 2012 by nearly 10 percent, up from a previous forecast of 5-9 percent, while net earnings would grow by between 12 and 17 percent, compared to previous guidance of 10-15 percent.

FRANKFURT, April 27 (Reuters) – German mail order company Neckermann announced it was moving online on Friday, leaving more than half of its staff out of work as customers increasingly turn to websites rather than catalogues to buy homewares, furniture or technology.

“The future of mail order is in the Internet. We cannot let this pass us by,” the Frankfurt-based company said in a statement announcing an end to its print catalogue, adding that over 80 percent of its sales are now made online.

“Too many of our resources are tied up in print. This is preventing us from developing neckermann.de,” Chief Executive Henning Koopmann said.

Other German companies battling to cope with a shift in customer buying to the internet include the book store division of Douglas and world’s fourth largest retailer Metro .

MediaMarkt-Saturn, the consumer electronics arm of Metro, has also admitted that it expanded its online offering late, with full websites only going live in recent months.

Neckermann, owned by private equity firm Sun Capital, also said it would no longer offer its own-brand range of clothing, but would expand its online range of technology, furniture and homewares.

The firm, whose first catalogue comprised 12 pages and a print run of 100,000 copies in 1950, said the plans would result in the loss of almost 1,400 jobs.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Germany’s Puma (PUMG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) missed expectations with a 5 percent fall in first-quarter earnings, as the group was hit by wariness among European consumers and struggled to exploit demand for western brands in China and lightweight sneakers in the United States.

Along with larger rivals Nike (NKE.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Adidas (ADSGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research), Puma had enjoyed a strong end to 2011 and analysts said they were surprised by the results, with sales, margins and profits all missing average forecasts.

“In comparison with Adidas and Nike, they’ve been weak on the product innovation front. They’ve got a lot of catching up to do, especially in terms of getting back to the desirability that the brand enjoyed in the 1990s,” BHF Bank analyst Peter Steiner said.

The group said sales rose only 6.1 percent in euro terms in the quarter, compared with almost 16 percent in the fourth quarter. Sales in Europe, which accounts for around 43 percent of turnover, dropped 1.7 percent in euro terms.

Chief Executive Franz Koch said the group would continue to invest in new products this year and expected a return to earnings growth from the second quarter.

While Nike and Adidas have enjoyed double-digit sales growth in China, where increasingly affluent and fashion-conscious customers have been snapping up European and American brands, Puma on Wednesday described its performance there as “mediocre” in the first quarter.

Koch said Puma saw sales growth of less than 10 percent in China in the first quarter, compared with high double-digit rates in India, Korea and Japan.

FRANKFURT, April 25 (Reuters) – Germany’s Puma missed expectations with a 5 percent fall in first-quarter earnings, as the group was hit by wariness among European consumers and struggled to exploit demand for western brands in China and lightweight sneakers in the United States.

Along with larger rivals Nike and Adidas, Puma had enjoyed a strong end to 2011 and analysts said they were surprised by the results, with sales, margins and profits all missing average forecasts.

“In comparison with Adidas and Nike, they’ve been weak on the product innovation front. They’ve got a lot of catching up to do, especially in terms of getting back to the desirability that the brand enjoyed in the 1990s,” BHF Bank analyst Peter Steiner said.

The group said sales rose only 6.1 percent in euro terms in the quarter, compared with almost 16 percent in the fourth quarter. Sales in Europe, which accounts for around 43 percent of turnover, dropped 1.7 percent in euro terms.

Chief Executive Franz Koch said the group would continue to invest in new products this year and expected a return to earnings growth from the second quarter.

While Nike and Adidas have enjoyed double-digit sales growth in China, where increasingly affluent and fashion-conscious customers have been snapping up European and American brands, Puma on Wednesday described its performance there as “mediocre” in the first quarter.

Koch said Puma saw sales growth of less than 10 percent in China in the first quarter, compared with high double-digit rates in India, Korea and Japan.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Sweeping landscapes, an untouched coastline, whales and penguins galore and the thrill of walking in the footsteps of famous explorers.

After a drop in tourist numbers in recent years, Antarctica is gaining in popularity this year thanks to the recent centenary of the South Pole expeditions and as people start to feel more comfortable shelling out for a once-in-a-lifetime trip.

British university lecturer Andrew Murray, 34, said a long-held fascination with explorers, mountains and remote landscapes had inspired him to spend around 3,600 pounds ($5,800) on a 10-day Christmas trip to Antarctica. He paid for flights to Argentina separately.

“When I booked it, I thought what have I done? It is a lot of money,” he told Reuters.

He said it was worth it though, with highlights including camping on the ice, seeing almost 50 humpback whales feeding in the Drake Passage and getting up close and personal with Gentoo penguins on a pebble beach.

“It’s a place that has such an impact on you,” he said. “But a lot of people seem to put out of mind that it is possible to do it.”

Earth’s only continent without a permanent human population welcomes most travelers from the United States, Australia, Germany and the UK, according to the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO).