How to compete with Lastminute.com…

By launching a trade facing website for agents to dynamically package its products, Lastminute.com accepts that is making both a generator of revenue and a competitor out of the travel agent.

“Some agents are being left behind in a changing marketplace”, Vic Darvey told TravelMole.

He is general manager for Holidayandmore.com, the trade only web-based desktop solution launched by Lastminute.com at the ABTA Convention. It enables agents to book and package together Lastminute’s products at net rates, then add their own margin.

It offers agents a single desktop with access to hotels, flights, car rental and lifestyle products from the full range of Lastminute brands including MedHotels, Holiday Autos and OTC. The dynamically packaged products are fully bonded under the ATOL held by Lastminute.com.

“People are going into agents, researching the holiday or shortbreak, then booking it themselves online. What we are doing is providing agents with access to book the products they were losing out on”, said Mr Darvey.

Mr Darvey accepted that by enabling agents to boost online sales, they were enabling them to compete more effectively with online retailers including Lastminute itself.

However, the rates that are available on Holidayandmore.com for all products are equivalent to those on Lastminute.com and its associated websites so in order to make their margin agents will need to sell the products at a higher price than that offered direct to consumers by Lastminute.

Low cost airlines and charter fares will be added to Holidayandmore.com in January, according to Mr Darvey. Around 500 agents have signed up to the website so far and Lastminute hopes to get this to 1,000 by the end of the year.

Agents are given a user name and password and the system allows for different tiers of access so managers can set margins. It also comes with a management system or can be fed into an agent’s existing system, according to Mr Darvey.

Mr Darvey said he thought the theme at this year’s ABTA Convention was flexibility.

“I thought John McEwan’s (Advantage Travel Centres) comment in the session about ‘the explosion of flexibility’ was the key quote from the convention.

“Everyone at the convention was talking about flexibility whether it was First Choice or independents like Advantage”, he said.

“We have second guessed this by releasing a product that gives agents access to net rates which they can then mark up themselves thereby managing their own margins.”

In his interview with convention moderator John Stapleton Lastminute founder Brent Hoberman spoke about a new role for travel agents.

“Travel agents should look to becoming lifestyle agents booking more than just flights and hotels,” he said. 

He added that agents should be seeing the same customers every week, not just twice a year, looking for restaurant deals, drinks at bars or theatre tickets as well as holidays.

Mr Hoberman said agents could use Holidayandmore.com to get access to this lifestyle product.

“It’s about selling the ‘and more’ part”, he said.

The brand was heavily promoted at the convention in Orlando, with shirts sported by the Holidayandmore.com team, including Mr Hoberman during his interview, as well as a sponsored club night on the final evening of the convention and banners at the convention centre.

Report by Ginny McGrath