Why has Kuoni opened 21 high street stores?

While some in the industry believe the high street agent is destined for extinction, long-haul specialist Kuoni has been busy opening 21 stores. Helen Roberts, Kuoni national retail sales manager, explains why…

"Over the past three years we have invested heavily in a high street retail presence, and now have 21 boutique travel stores nationwide. The new stores visually bring the brand to life on the high street. Kuoni also continues to work closely with specialist independent agents, developing travel partnerships and co-branded stores. We currently have four co-branded stores.

Having a collection of travel stores means we can talk with customers directly offering personalised face-to-face service and advice on our holidays.

Planning a holiday is exciting and our experts enjoy sharing their own travel knowledge by offering tips on hidden gems and authentic experiences. For particularly complex itineraries, honeymoons, weddings and special occasions there is an even greater need from customers to talk with our personal travel advisors, whose wealth of knowledge and travel experience really helps inspire and ease the planning and booking process.

The Kuoni management team recently visited the stores to experience ‘a day in the life of a personal travel expert’. Dagmar Morrocco, Kuoni market manager said: "Customers appreciated it when their personal travel expert had experienced a destination or hotel personally. The weather (guaranteed sunshine) was a must in most requests. I was also surprised by the number of customers who were completely open to suggestions on where to go with the only caveat: "two weeks in the sunshine" and "somewhere different!"

We have chosen high profile locations to optimise brand visibility and raise brand awareness, enticing new customers into our stores. It was important when choosing locations not to encroach on our supporting independent travel agents and we have been actively working with them to develop new partnerships.

Our secondary aim was to use the stores as a platform to showcase Kuoni and its core values by designing a unique and innovative concept to ‘wow’ our customers.

We also developed a ‘destination insider’ and ‘trusted advisor’ concept to equip our personal travel advisors with the skills, knowledge and confidence to be the best in the industry. This included investment in educational visits, intensive product training and on-going development opportunities.

With the likes of John McEwan (Advantage chief executive) and Mary Portas championing the British’s high street, Kuoni is proud to be involved in the revival of high street retailing. The future is bright for the high street, and our brand awareness continues to grow as the word spreads that Kuoni is in town and we are seeing more customers interacting with the brand.

We also have a growing schedule of travel inspired in-store events and Kuoni will be collaborating with high profile TV personalities, authors and broadcasters to host evenings where clients can listen and talk to these celebrities over champagne and canapés. We want to use the retail space we have as event space after hours to bring the Kuoni brand to the customer in new and interesting ways."