still have some printed material, but it’s likely to be more like a magazine driving people to digital content. I asked my management team: ‘If we were starting a tour operator tomorrow, would we have brochures?’ Pretty much everyone said no.”
Local expertise
But this does not mean the end of Tui shops or travel agents, said Longman. He insisted: “We’re big believers in people alongside technology. “Travel is more and more about
local insight. We’re proud of hiring local people in resorts. We also aim to tap into the expertise of our employees, and make sure we share it instantly and effectively.” However, he added: “We’ll
have virtual holidays and virtual assistants. We’ve been working with IBM using its Watson technology to try to recreate the
conversation you can have with a travel agent, and we just released our Tui virtual assistant. That was an important step for us. Reading the press, people saw this as a move to replace the travel agent – but not at all. There is always going to be a place for the agent, we just want to make the digital interaction as intuitive as possible. “We’ve started work on virtual
reality. Imagine the ability to choose a hotel and to be able to step inside the hotel room from the comfort of your local shop, or to walk around the pool or entertainment venues. This is stuff we’re working on. It’s not far away. “Personalisation and the use
of data to recognise customers instantly, and better inform their holiday choices, is our key priority. “We take more than five million people away each year [at Tui UK] and more than 20 million as a group. So we have a lot of
data to understand different customer types, their reactions to the information we present and what that means for the further information we serve them. “We still have more than 600
stores and there are no plans to shut those. The key is ensuring customers can find the expertise our staff can provide using technology. “Customers want to be
recognised and [for us] to know their preferences. “Whatever you can do to make them feel special becomes key.”
Nick Longman was speaking at the University of Surrey’s School of Hospitality & Tourism Management Alumni Winter Reception at the London Transport Museum.
5 January 2017
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