but bookings via mobile have yet to snowball. Lee Hayhurst reports from Amsterdam
Thomas Cook to continue to invest in new technology
Thomas Cook will invest in new technologies such as virtual reality to create promotional content, as the role of the traditional brochure declines.
Gilles Despas, group chief
marketing and digital officer, stopped short of declaring the end of the brochure, as rival Tui Travel has done. But he said the firm would produce more magazine- style and inspirational content. Despas said virtual reality had been much hyped and that Cook had made mistakes in the way it had introduced it into its stores. But he said it would continue to invest in the technology. “If you want to go into virtual
reality, you have to go in for quality,” he said. “You have to invest money.” He added that the question of return on investment in virtual
“If you want to go into virtual reality, you have to go in for quality. You have to invest money”
reality was related to the future of brochures in retail, and in the UK, where Cook has 80% controlled distribution, the brochure will be scaled back. “There will be a transformation,
but not overnight,” said Despas. “With the web, you have a lot more possibilities. It’s time to move on and be a lot more inspirational.” He said Cook had an ever-
decreasing number of customers who exclusively used its 750 UK stores, with most also going online. Mobile was also a big focus, according to Despas, with more
than half of UK traffic now coming from phones and tablets, and 40% of online booking made on smartphones.
“The biggest challenge for us is smartphones,” said Despas. “We have had to put a lot of resources into it, but it’s starting to pay off.” Despas conceded traditional
operators such as Cook were under pressure from
Booking.com, Expedia and the low-cost carriers. “You have to keep the best of the
tour operator model but take the best of the flexibility of the new models that are here now,” he said.
Hotelbeds: Integration will take 18 months
It will take at least a year and a half for Hotelbeds to integrate Tourico and GTA on to a single technology platform, according to the bed bank. Executive chairman Joan Vilà said that while
scale was important, it was not the only benefit the comany would reap from the recent acquisitions of two rivals. He added that efficiency was also important
in a fragmented hotel market for properties that needed B2C intermediaries to compete with the big players. Vilà said the sale of Hotelbeds in June by Tui
Group to private-equity investors Cinven and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board meant it now had owners that put the bed bank at its core. “They have really added growth in strategic positions,” he said.
“They are very supportive and saw an opportunity in consolidating the bed-bank marketplace.” The buyout of Orlando-based Tourico is
expected to be completed in June. Vilà said it would bring good management and technology, as well as access to US hotel stock, while GTA was strong in the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions. Vilà said the companies were similar and would
be brought on to a single technology platform, which was likely to be a combination of all three. “We will be one single company,” said Vilà,
adding that work to integrate them would take “18 months at least”. Hotelbeds will look to increase its presence in
tours and activities, but believes there is plenty of potential growth in its core hotel sector.
ALL EARS: Delegates at the Phocuswright Europe conference
1 June 2017
travelweekly.co.uk 79
Gilles Despas: ‘With the web, you have a lot more possibilities’
Hotels succeed in driving bookings to their own websites
Attempts to drive direct bookings online are paying off for hotels, according to panellists on a hotel distribution round-table. Mark Lomanno, senior partner
at benchmarking platform Kalibri Labs, said attempts to use loyalty programmes to change consumer behaviour and increase direct bookings were at “early stages”. But he said: “For the first time
since we started collecting data, in the last few months of 2016 the number of people booking on brand. com was higher than on OTAs.” Lomanno said brand loyalty was up and distribution costs down, but a question remained over the value of customers attracted by discounts. “Will they [hotels] stay with it
long enough? The jury is out on that. It’s a really good start but it’s just a start.”
Lennert De Jong, CitizenM
Hotels’ commercial chief, questioned the value of offering “dirty incentives” to customers to stay at the group’s “beautiful hotels”. He said it didn’t want to be the Samsung of the hotel sector, preferring customers to pay more for the brand, like Apple. Terri Scriven, Google’s industry head of hospitality and tourism, said new techniques enable hotels to be as sophisticated as OTAs in terms of consumer targeting.
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