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The Travel Convention • October 18-20 • Hilton Malta Conference Centre • St Julians DOMESTIC HOLIDAYS.
Agents are ‘cost effective’
Daniel Pearce. OPERATORS WERE told not to dismiss the travel trade as a distribution channel during a sparky session on marketing at the Travel Convention. Paul Evans, chief executive of Low Cost Travel
Group, told the Travel Marketing Forum – hosted by the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s Travel Industry Group – that travel agents were a cost- effective route to the consumer. “One of the biggest issues is cost of acquisition
of your customers – if you’re building a business, it’s relatively easy to get to one million passen- gers,” claimed Evans. “From there, to build on and hopefully carry tens of millions of passengers becomes much more difficult. But the cost of acquisition through the trade is getting better and better – do not dismiss the trade. Evans added that there was no getting away
from the fact that it was the price paid by the consumer that remained the key driver of sales. “Price is the priority – along with ease of use – if you’re going to be in the volume game,” he said.
David Goodman, managing director of Conrad
Advertising, said that the power of a trusted brand when selling travel should not be under- estimated. “It’s easy to forget about the brand – when
you’re all offering something similar, the brand is all important.”
Later in the session Paul Flatters, managing
partner of the Trajectory Partnership, set out how marketing travel through mobile phones was a route that was not being fully considered by many travel businesses. “Forty per cent of iPhone users already use their phone to access the internet more than they do a PC or laptop,” said Flatters. Although fewer than one in four (24%) consumers currently have smartphones, they are the people more likely to be booking travel.
Flatters highlighted the Ocado shopping app,
where commuters could do their shopping while sitting on a train, as a great example of mobile marketing.
UK tourism must ‘pull together’
DELEGATES ATTENDING a breakfast hosted by VisitEngland, Bourne Leisure and Hoseasons heard a rallying cry for the domestic tourism industry to join together to encourage con- sumers to take a break in the UK. Hoseasons managing director Geoff Cowley said that the government’s spending cuts – which mean VisitEngland will lose a third of its budget – should force businesses to do more to promote domestic tourism. “VisitEngland and other country-based tourism bodies simply can’t be expected to do more with less,” he said. “Private tourism businesses are going to have to get more involved in the positive promotion of the UK as a destination, and as the biggest self- catering operator we plan to play a leading role in this.”
Bourne Leisure announced plans for a third hotel at its Butlins resort in Bognor Regis at the event, after summer occupancy levels soared to 98% across the brand. The new development will be part of a massive
“Loose Talk” all round from Chris Photi, White Hart Associates; Oliver Brendon, ATD Travel Services; Hugo Burge, Cheapflights; Victoria Sanders, Teletext Holidays; Roger Allard, All Leisure Holidays; and Paul Evans, Lowcost Travel Group
WEB MARKETING. Google and regulation are main hurdles for start-ups
THE COST of selling through Google is now one of the main hurdles to setting up a business in the travel industry. Low Cost Group chief executive Paul Evans cited the spend required to secure a regular good placing on Google as one of the key expenses facing new businesses, along with satisfying all the regulatory requirements. “It is now so powerful in the industry. We spend a significant percentage of our budget for selling to the consumer on Google and that’s a burden for the business,” he said. Oliver Brendon, chief executive of ATD Travel
Services, agreed that getting a presence on Google was now a much bigger hurdle for entre- preneurs. “If you go back to 2002, the internet was in its
infancy and there were about 25 million web- sites. Now there are 10 times that number, so it is 10 times more difficult to get a presence on Google,” he said. They were speaking during a “Loose Talk” de- bate along with All Leisure Holidays chairman Roger Allard, Cheapflights chairman Hugo Burge, Teletext Holidays managing director Victoria Sanders, and White Hart Associates Chris Photi.
Showcasing Britain’s Best: US TV channel NBC is to broadcast from a different part of the UK every day during the 2012 Olympics in a deal set up by Visit Britain to showcase the country’s best. Visit Britain chairman Christopher Rodrigues CBE said it was working with the broadcaster to “take the opportunity to tell Britain’s story”. “Generally Britain over-delivers on customers’
expectations. We give people more than they expect which means there is a big opportunity to show them more of what we have.” Rodrigues explained how Visit Britain was working hard with overseas media to match the UK’s strengths to target markets abroad.
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investment programme across Butlins marking the brand's 75th anniversary. The investment comes after all-year-round occupancy at its Bognor, Minehead and Skegness parks hit 85% – and forward sales for the year ahead leapt 12% on the same period last year. Allan Lambert, head of retail, said forward bookings suggested the trend for more Brits to holiday in the UK was being maintained. “Our three holiday businesses, Butlins, Haven and Warner Leisure Hotels, continue to be popular because we continuously reinvest in our brands.”
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