Tui Travel is planning to increase its online presence as the company provided an update on its strategy.

Published: 28 Jan 2011

Tui Travel is planning to increase its online presence as the company provided an update on its strategy.

“There is a clear trend for our customers to book their holidays online. We currently have a leading online presence and plan to expand this highly efficient channel to drive greater control of distribution, and reduce costs, in our Mainstream businesses,” said Peter Long, chief executive of Tui Travel.

“Additionally, we are investing in our accommodation only OTA businesses, particularly in Asia where we are utilising the LateRooms.com infrastructure and content to build our presence in this attractive market through our AsiaRooms.com brand.”

Differentiated holiday

In its trading update, the group also shared that its outperformance in key source markets shows that its strategy of developing differentiated holiday concepts is working.

“These healthy trading trends are a direct result of many years of product investment which improves customer satisfaction, loyalty, booking profiles and ultimately margins. We are accelerating the roll out of differentiated products across all source markets to drive the shift in mix away from commodity products, which will continue to experience margin pressure,” said Long.

Tui Travel said it would push sales of tailored all-inclusive holidays and offer more trips with durations other than seven and 14 days, as the tour operator reported a first quarter operating profit up £20m on the same period last year.

Among the highlights, the group shared that it is witnessing encouraging trading trends have continued for Summer 2011:

• Overall bookings up between 8 – 16 percent in key markets;
• Strong customer demand for differentiated product, for which bookings are up 26 percent, 46 percent and 21 percent in the UK, Nordics and Germany respectively.