[back]

Firing on all Channels
7 January 2002

The early days of e-commerce were all about getting on the Web. If you were not creating waves online, all those surfers were going to go elsewhere. EMAP Online created Bargainholidays.com amongst many other travel Web sites. EMAP Online is now closed down (albeit the Bargainholidays.com site is still going strong). Thomson Holidays formed an internal grouping called Digital Travel Group (DTG), clearly aiming for the Guiness Book of Records award for the most travel Web sites owned (wholly or partially) by one travel organisation. DTG no longer exists. thomascook.com was formed as an autonomous e-commerce business unit within Thomas Cook. It is now much slimmed down and integrated into the larger Thomas Cook Retail organisation.

What has happened here? Did everybody get it wrong? Certainly not. Talk to the large and successful online travel businesses, particularly those that predominantly sell flights such as Expedia and ebookers.com, and they will say they are in profit and growing well. Chat to any of the smaller, specialist travel companies on the Web. They will tell you that the Web is a terrifically cost effective channel to new overseas markets. They are winning customers they could not possibly have reached in pre-Internet days.

However, larger travel companies, particularly those that are vertically integrated, have realised that life is more complex for them. Consumers are multi-channel beasts and these travel companies need to be firing on all channels. With complete ease, consumers will hop between channels, checking you out on the Web one minute, phoning you the next, wanting to see how their bookings are progressing on interactive digital television (IDTV) and then popping into one of your shops for a chat. They are dealing with one organisation, so they absolutely expect that whichever channel they use to make contact, the company will deal with them fluently. Consumers expect to glean the same information across each channel. They will be shocked if pricing and availability vary from channel to channel. They will annoyed if your retail staff have no idea about the booking they made on IDTV.

The large vertically integrated travel companies are now taking multi-channel integration very seriously. Lunn Poly has been using the byline “Call Click Come In” which exactly sums up what consumers expect. thomascook.com is now integrated within Thomas Cook retail. Airtours has just launched their new MyTravel brand.

So is the industry going to be able to rise to this multi-channel challenge? That remains to be seen. For tour operators, it is relatively easy. Most tour operator reservation system suppliers are offering Web integration so that bookings made on the Web are stored directly in the same system as all other bookings received. For the large vertically integrated travel groups, there is a good deal of systems and organisational integration to be achieved. This takes time and money. With the downturn in business following the tragic events of 11 September, the capital expenditure for these projects might well be frozen until bookings return to normal levels. I truly hope not and, in fact, two announcements in the last week give me cause for optimism. Airtour’s has stated that MyTravel will have a bookable Web site and Thomas Cook has unveiled their plans for the launch of a digital television channel. Perhaps by this time next year we will have seen the first travel companies that are truly firing on all channels. 

(Travel Technology Initiative’s recent Autumn conference was on the topic of Firing on all Channels. Presentations can be viewed on their Web site at www.tti.org)

[back]