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Bookings trends revealed by Thomas Cook
Research by Thomas Cook has found that 16% of customers who research their holidays online will then go and book it in a high street shop.
The tour operator, currently being merged with Myravel, said it was therefore keen to make sure it offered customers a variety of booking channels.
“The trend is that a lot of our customers want to be able to touch our organisation how and when they want to, whether that’s the ability to go into a shop, through a call centre, or online,” said Ian Derbyshire, executive director of Thomas Cook’s Holidays Division.
Thomas Cook’s latest industry report predicts that as people’s lives get busier, many will turn their backs on the internet.
“Instead they will turn to experts who provide a concierge-style personal service. Some travel agents will thrive by rebranding themselves as ‘personal travel consultants’ or ‘travel concierges’,” it explained.
Derbyshire said the tour operator has managed to keep the package holiday “robust” by adapting it over the years.
But Rob Burgess, executive director for sales and distribution, said the industry needs to change the perception of the term ‘package holiday’.
“We need to make people more aware of the value it gives,” said Burgess, who joined the operator earlier this year from Lloyds TSB.
“My friends they tell me they’ve never been on a package holiday, when in fact they have been, but it’s not the kind where you’re on a coach singing songs all the way to the hotel!”
By Bev Fearis
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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