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TUI hits back at report predicting the death of high street agents
TUI has hit back at a TravelSupermarket report which claims only 11% of Brits will book their summer holiday through a high street agent this year (see earlier story).
Nick Longman, distribution and online director at TUI UK & Ireland, said he strongly disagrees with TravelSupermarket’s claim that local travel agents on the high street will soon be a thing of the past.
"From our own research we know that there will always be customers who want to make, perhaps, their biggest expenditure of the year face-to-face, which is why we offer customers multi-faceted booking channels," he said.
"A trend we’ve noticed is that customers are using our channels interchangeably. Customers might research their holidays on our website and on review sites like TripAdvisor, but then come into the shop to actually book their holidays. Whilst others will pick up brochures in-store and then book at home online.
"Both channels do co-exist and perform well in the same key area."
According to Longman, the company’s web share in the South East is 7% higher than its average web share, but the region is still the biggest for retail sales and accounts for 31% of total shop sales.
"Our online sales would also be lower if it wasn’t for a retail presence, as our data shows that 20% of customers who visited one of our retail shops ended up booking with us on the web," he said.
He also pointed to independent data from LTM on the wider travel market, which shows that for summer 2012 over 67% of holidays are still being sold through travel shops, with the remaining 33% being sold direct online or via the telephone.
"These proportions of distribution have changed very little year-on-year too. Furthermore, Euromonitor research has predicted that even in 2015 over 60% of holidays will still be sold off-line," he added.
* What do you think of the TravelSupermarket report? Do you agree the days of the high street agent are numbered?
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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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