TUI UK and Ireland has appointed Jo Hickson as its first head of innovation.
Hickson, who started her career on TUI’s graduate scheme, joins from Home Retail Group, the parent company of Argos and Habitat, where she held the same position.
She will report to Jeremy Osborne, director of strategic business change and innovation.
In her new role, she will run the newly-created TUI Holiday Lab, the company’s centre of innovation and collaboration.
The Lab team is also recruiting an additional member as it looks to add a ‘creative technologist with user experience and user interface capabilities’.
Launched in March this year, the TUI Holiday Lab is tasked with ‘exploring and developing new and emerging technologies that will enhance the holiday experience for customers’.
Leading the innovation team, Hickson will focus on ‘anticipating the next advances in technology and customer behaviour, scanning the horizon for future disruptive trends and innovation opportunities – including natural language processing and virtual reality – and using this to feed a pipeline of innovation projects’.
"The TUI Holiday Lab allows us to take new ideas through to delivery quicker than ever before," said Osborne.
"With the creation of this new role, we now have a strong team working together to anticipate our customers’ future needs and create innovative solutions. It’s an exciting opportunity to set the vision and agenda for innovation at TUI UK, and I’m delighted to be working with Jo and the rest of the team to create genuine business change to benefit our customers."
