The Institute of Travel and Tourism conference earlier this
month had an impressive array of speakers, including Lord Adonis, Mary Portas
and – controversially – Nigel Farage. However, it was two separate speakers
from TUI and Thomas Cook talking about integrating technology and skills that left
the biggest impression with me.
Johan Lungren, Deputy CEO, TUI UK & Ireland talked about
how TUI had been trialling their new ‘Generation Centres’; travel shops where
digital technology has been fully integrated, and John Straw, Head of Digital,
Thomas Cook, talked about how they are maximising the best from the web with
their agent’s knowledge and customer service through their new digital approach.
It really highlighted the cutting edge of travel and
technology, and the importance of having a skilled workforce.
There were some interesting stats flying around:
- 20% of Thomas Cook bookings are made on tablets
- Tesco sold 450,0000 of its low-cost tablets over Christmas, meaning that they are becoming much more common
- 44% of people search for travel in an average month. They do it over 17 research sessions and start 73 days before booking
- The closing ratio in Thomas Cook’s shop was 50% and on the website it was less than one percent.
Both companies talked about how, in their different ways,
they were using the power of their agents to help clients cut through the
choice by fully integrating the advice and guidance in a travel shop with the
information on the web. It’s had a real impact on business and, of course, on
customer satisfaction.
Bringing out agents’ skills and knowledge has been critical;
as has ensuring that they can use and harness the technology. It all helps to
explain the huge changes we’re seeing in travel. Investment in training and
development has increased by 54% in travel agencies and 234% in tour operations
and, as a result, the number of employers reporting that staff are not
proficient to work in their business has fallen. No wonder then that
productivity levels have increased significantly year on year since 2008, which
isn’t bad given this was during the economic downturn.
After a difficult period of contraction the travel industry
is on the up and its workforce is now set to grow to 94,145 by 2020. The
emphasis on having skilled staff is critical, as is the ability to get the most
out of them. As another presenter, David Speakman, Group Chairman, Traveller
Councillors, summed it up as the move from a transactional relationship with
the client to one that’s relational. It’s also about skills and good people!
You can find more travel figures in our recent research
insight report at http://bit.ly/T75o5t
