- UK Holiday Travel Spend Down First time in Five Years: Speaking at last week’s Barclays Travel Forum, Graham Pickett, who is Deloitte’s global head of travel and aviation, told the gathering that while “consumer confidence remains high, leisure spending is dwindling.” “Our surveys are showing a decline in consumer spend, particularly in holiday experience spend,” said Pickett, who added, “I found that quite surprising. We’ve been running these surveys quarterly for four or five years and this is the first time we have seen a significant fall. It is a concern for me.”
Pickett predicted that late, or last-minute, bookings are going to be a challenge because there will be some excess supply and capacity, suggesting that the industry will witness a last-minute market and some deals, observing that, “The level of consumer debt and consumer borrowing is high and back to the levels of pre-crash. But consumers still want to go on holiday.”
- TUI CEO Says Thomson Rebrand “Took 10 Years off” the Company: TUI Group’s chief executive, Fritz Joussen, believes its shift away from Thomson in the UK has “knocked 10 years off the brand. TUI is now compared to a brand 10 years younger,” he said following the release of the group’s half-year results.
Speaking following the release of the group’s half-year results, group chief executive Fritz Joussen said unaided awareness of the TUI brand in the UK was now “where Thomson was before the rebrand.”
“We are all done,” he said, adding, “Tui is now compared to a brand 10 years younger. A brand usually ages with the customer.”
Thomson was the last of the many European national brands shut down by TUI as it moved to a single, global brand—part of the company’s strategic plan since the merger of TUI Travel with TUI AG, its parent company in December 2014. Thomson Holidays started trading as TUI UK on October18, 2017. Another TUI brand, First Choice was left untouched.
Thomson was one of the oldest tour operator brands in the UK. Originally named Thomson Tour Operations and renamed in 1997, it was founded as part of the Thomson Travel Group in 1965 following the acquisition of four tour operators, Skytours, Riviera, Luxitours, Gaytours and the airline Britannia Airways by Roy Thomson.
REMINDER: INBOUND will not publish next week, as we will be a part of IPW #50 in Denver, Colorado. We resume publication with the May 30 edition of INBOUND.
