TV Travel Group has completed its first venture outside the UK and plans to launch TV Travel Shop in Germany after signing a joint venture agreement with German tour operator TUI.

The German language channel will be become available to an initial 12 million homes across Germany, Austria and Switzerland, said TV Travel Group, which launched its UK business three years ago and added a second channel just last year.

The channel will be developed with TUI, part of the Preussag Group, which is Europe’s largest tour operator. TV Travel Shop Germany will be based in Hanover and have an initial investment of around GBP20 million (E31.23 million) a year.

The German format will mirror the UK channel and run 24-hours a day with destination reports, studio links and advice from presenters. TV Travel Group will hold a 75 per cent share, with TUI having the remaining 25 per cent.

“Negotiations are also underway with additional distribution platforms and TV Travel Group predicts that it will eventually be available in some 30 million German speaking homes,” said the group.

The UK channels are currently available free to more than nine million households across various cable, satellite and terrestrial platforms. With this new venture, the group said it would have access to around “half of Europe’s package holiday travel market, worth over GBP20 billion and serving more than 50 million passengers.”