Thomson ‘selling 60% online’ – UPDATED
Thomson is selling 60% of its holidays online with a strong emphasis on components being put together by consumers.
The figure was disclosed as part of Thomson’s annual Online Booking Report, which also tipped package holidays to become an upmarket holiday concept.
The report likens the package holiday, in its current form, to the DIY market, which is declining in favour of GSI or ‘Get Someone In’.
Similarly, a portion of consumers will continue to look to professional travel consultants to take the stress and strain of organising a holiday.
The operator, which added a text search facility to its Thomson.co.uk site last month to help consumers find properties more easily, also plans to add TripAdvisor review content by the end of the year.
In addition, Thomson is developing a web filtering service for each of its different holiday segments.
The operator has added a luxury button to the home page of Thomson.co.uk and has plans for a similar service for families, spa holidays and couples.
The luxury button enables website visitors to drill down really quickly to get to the sorts of upmarket properties they want.
Once consumers go to the luxury page the whole tone, language, pictures and destinations change accordingly to give it a luxury feel.
TUI Northern Europe director of new media Graham Donoghue said: “When I go into a website I really quickly want to find the best hotel and be talked to in an adult way. We looked at all our hotels and narrowed them down to about 110 luxury properties. The idea now is to extend the filtering to other areas”
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by Linda Fox
Linda Fox
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