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Travolution European Summit 2020: Virtual event brings together Continued from page 40


scenarios where it is relevant to the performance of the package. But he said it should not


cover clients who book in the full knowledge of the ongoing pandemic and then the following week cancel and demand a refund because the FCDO advice has changed. “There is going to have


to be some sense applied, because most larger companies in travel need months to plan programmes,” he said. “They cannot follow this


flip-flop, on-off, hot-cold [approach]. It just doesn’t work.” Farina Azam, partner at law


firm Kemp Little, agreed there had to be a threshold beyond which the Package Travel Regulations’ rules regarding a consumers’ right to cancel did not apply. She advised firms to get


their paperwork in order, be upfront about FCDO warnings and advise customers about the availability of specialist travel insurance in the booking process. Azam said the current


situation was a test of the new right-to-cancel regulations introduced in 2018. She said she would expect


any court to find in favour of a client who had booked before the start of the pandemic. However, she said: “If you’re


booking a holiday now, you are fully aware of the fact that there’s a global pandemic and you are fully aware that there are FCDO advisories in place. “So, I think you do have


to separate it out between customers who booked a long time ago when we didn’t even know about Covid and those who have booked since.”


Tui aims to expand range with leisure programme


Tui is aiming to stretch its brand and product offering to become more relevant to its customers’ lives beyond their travel needs. Katie McAlister, UK and Ireland


chief marketing officer, said Covid-19 had presented the firm with an opportunity to reassess the products and services it offers. As well as a renewed focus on


digital retailing and marketing, Tui’s new vision is to provide “a million things for a million people to do”. This will be driven by the recent integration of specialist tickets and


attractions platform Musement, which Tui acquired in 2018. Tui Destination Experiences has


been renamed Tui Musement. McAlister said: “The platform


has brilliant technology and content. It provides something that goes way beyond the range of excursions that you would traditionally associate with us, like theme park and theatre tickets. “And it gives us the opportunity


to become a more intrinsic part of people’s lives beyond travel.” McAlister said Tui had used the Covid crisis to prepare to adapt


McAlister talks to Travolution editor Lee Hayhurst


Tui Musement gives us the opportunity to become a more intrinsic part of people’s lives beyond travel


to changing customer demands. “Over the last few months, we’ve


been able to conduct an unintended but very real test of how customers interact with us,” she said. “We could see just how willing


customers were to move to online and to self-serve, a test which is now fun- damentally shaping our sales strategy. “We found some did adopt online


ways of working and we could push that further, but some just could not or would not move to self-serve online. It reinforced for us that some customers have got a real need for that very personal human service, but also that there was an alternative way to deliver that.”


On the Beach uses downturn to focus on 10-year strategy


On the Beach has turned its attention to developing technology fit to support growth over the next decade. Prior to the Covid-19 crisis,


the Manchester-based OTA had acquired Sunshine.co.uk and Classic Collection Holidays, and launched in Europe with its eBeach brand. Chief executive Simon Cooper said the travel shutdown was an


38 15 OCTOBER 2020


opportunity to take long-term strategic decisions. “In the middle of February, we


were saying there is a hurricane going to blow through the travel industry . . . so what can we do that we wouldn’t be able to do in a normal trading environment? “If revenues are going be next to


zero, it takes away certain pressures, allows you to focus on other things. “We’re looking at our five to


10-year opportunity. How can we reposition the platform, the brand, the talent and the organisation to prepare for that? We’re fortunate that we have relatively modern


Simon Cooper


technology, but this is tech that has its roots in 2009 through 2012-13. In tech, that’s quite old. The platform was designed to do what we wanted to do then. What we want to achieve today is different.”


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