Teletext Holidays to drop bulk of suppliers

Teletext Holidays confirmed today that it will slash the number of companies featured on its website by 70%, leaving it with only around 15 suppliers.

Managing director Victoria Sanders said the tender process would begin this week, which will lead to up to 35 suppliers being dropped.

Although Teletext has not confirmed which companies will be among the chosen few, it is believed to be focusing on mainstream package holidays, including cruises, rather than more specialist products. 

In a statement issued this morning, Sanders said it made more commercial sense for Teletext to work with a smaller base of clients.

"It’s a case of less is more so we can focus on delivering high volumes of business for a core group of clients by working in a more focused way," she said. 

"Working with fewer advertisers will not be diluting the range of holidays in any way.   Consumers will continue to see all the great value mainstream holidays we are famous for and we will continue to invest in our online marketing to drive traffic online."

She said the changes, which will take place in January, will be part of the next phase of its business relaunch.

 “We’ve made big changes over the last year to put new technology at the heart of the organisation so we continue to deliver business for our clients and remain front of mind for consumers.  

“Our website is performing well with over 19m unique users performing nearly 100m holiday searches,  we will launch a brand new app for iPad next week and we are now the only travel brand to have a presence on the new internet-connected Samsung Smart TVs.

“We have also invested in new brand marketing campaigns on television and in traditional and new media as well as SEO (search engine optimization) to make sure our brand has high consumer awareness and that is proving extremely effective.

“We are in a strong position but we need to move onto the next phase and build on success but reflect the difficult market we are operating in.”

Sanders said Teletext was in contact with all travel industry advertisers, including new and existing clients, to talk them through the changes to discuss different ways they can work together.  "We will continue to offer advertising on the site and we have an active and highly targeted e-marketing strategy which we want partners to be involved with as we will look to expand our database," she added.

By Linsey McNeill