NEWS THE INTERVIEW
PICTURES: David Lothian
customers in a hotel, it would have a rep. Now it’s much more tailored and sophisticated to the type of customers. “It’s adding costs but it’s added
huge customer satisfaction. The higher the customer satisfaction, the higher the repeat customer rate, the higher the retention rate. It’s a virtuous circle. The investment is more than worth it.”
Tui on . . . its retail estate and agents The company plans to open 10 to 20 new stores nationwide in the next 12 months. It currently has 317 branches, including 13 in Next stores. AF: “The retail estate is stable and now we’re looking at growing it. We’re looking for those ‘white spots’. It’s very site dependent: it will depend on finding the right locations for those stores. “We’ll set an aspiration to fill in
some of those dots, of somewhere between 10 and 20 [stores], but
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how fast we get there will clearly depend on the opportunities that come up and what we can make work. The higher end probably will take us longer than 12 months because the good locations don’t come up without paying the kind of rents that caused problems in retail in the first place. “Homeworking has [also] been a
great success. Those people are just geniuses at managing our customers and have got to be the most enthusiastic people in our business.”
Tui on . . . third-party agents AF: “It’s a really important part of what we sell. We are really happy if we get ambitious third-party agents that want to sell our products. We are not in any way not wanting to sell through third-party retail. “The challenge we always have
is we clearly won’t sell through third-party retail to the detriment of our own retail shop that’s two doors down the road, [but] we
absolutely want third-party agents to be part of that as we bring new products through. “We want to give them
[third-party agents] the opportunity to be successful with our products the same way we want our own retail estate to be successful with those products. We clearly have to balance all those things.”
Tui on . . . Marella Cruises and river cruise potential RS: “Cruise obviously went through a very tough period with the pandemic but the bookings for January and February have been absolutely flying – and not just for the existing summer seasons but also for winter and for summer next year. They’re even further ahead of where they were previously were. “[Marella expansion] is
always based on getting the right ships at the right price, and ships that we think are going to suit our customers.”
Tui on . . . aspirations in the touring sector A
tuitours.com brand featuring individual and group tours in 30 countries is due to launch in Belgium ahead of expansion this year and next. RS: “We should have the same market share for all our products. I compare everything we operate against our beach [product] and therefore the ambition is everything should perform as well as that…my guess would be approaching 50%. We expect [touring and excursion sales via Tui Musement] to gather momentum over the next 12 to 18 months.” AF: “Having that blend of products allows us to appeal to [independent travellers looking beyond beach breaks] and bring in new customers.”
To read more from this interview, search for ‘Tui’ at
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