Thomson creates website ‘stickiness’ with additional content and new features
Thomson has enhanced its main website with a raft of new features and content to try and keep people on the site longer and get them to book.
The www.thomson.co.uk service, which was relaunched in time for the peak selling season, now features a destinations tab at the top of the home-page to make the number of places the operator flies to more prominent.
Packages sold online are up 35% year-on-year, while accommodation-only and dynamic packaging have both more than doubled. Overall traffic to the site is claimed to be up by 50%.
“These are big numbers we’re talking about. We’re forecasting hundreds of thousands for accommodation-only and dynamic packaging this year,” said TUI UK director or new media Graham Donoghue.
The increased online traffic comes as Thomson prepares to realign self as a major online travel company (see previous TravelMole story).
The operator has also introduced additional editorial content to help consumers as well as to enable the site to be picked up by Google in natural searches.
A multi-media section for each destination now also allows consumers to view other people’s holiday snaps following a deal with photo sharing site Flickr.
Donoghue said: “We don’t mind because it makes it quite human and it’s free. People are definitely using it.”
The operator has also created more integration on the site by linking up maps, reviews and videos.
Donoghue said the company was also trying to be more inspirational with its content from the navigation point of view by introducing functionality such as the ‘Explore Our Destinations’ moving globe.
The feature enables consumers to rotate the globe to find destinations and then a short video on that destination is played.
“People want to be inspired, they want rich information and they want to interact,” said Donoghue.
by Linda Fox
Linda Fox
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