It is not a revolution because several tour operators offer this option without date limit. A few days ago, Patrice Caradec, Alpitour France, told us that Bravo Club offers were made with or without transport. But TUI wants to place itself at the level of Booking or the Expedia group with a substantial offer. It is not a question of replacing the usual package but of expanding its market. A platform has just been launched in Sweden. It’s about giving yourself the time to study the reaction of customers. This also includes dynamic packages, as well as the sale of events and activities through the Tui’s Musement platform.
Sebastian Ebel confirms that his main activity remained the package
At the launch event on Friday January 20 in Stockholm, Tui chief executive Sebastian Ebel insisted that the package market remained its “heart” and that new developments such as the accommodation-only service created “no risk” to its ability to sell more packages. vacation. It’s about attracting new customers.
Nordic countries first and a target of 90,000 accommodations
The hosting-only platform, now operational in Sweden, will expand to Denmark, Norway and Finland in February. It currently has 15,000 hotels in 50 destinations, but Tui plans to increase content month by month, aiming to have around 90,000 properties by the end of this year.
Create competition with Booking or Hotel.com in particular
Tui wants to compete with major online travel agencies by offering a range of more “flexible” hotel rates, as well as a host of other travel “components,” to both existing and new customers.
An app to keep up with competitors
“It will all be in the app – it will be the full product line,” said Sébastien Ebel. “We will have the reservation on the app. »
He added that Tui’s plan was to only include hotels on the accommodation portal with the ‘highest ranking on quality’ and that they would not seek to have ‘a million hotels’ up for sale. .
“The range is huge and we’ve never contracted them before, including in cities like London,” Ebel said. “We want to expand our offer to meet the needs of our customers. Hosting only is probably the biggest incremental market besides dynamic package. »
The desire to gain market share
He pointed out that Tui still wants to “gain market share” in the package holiday industry, but its growth plans also involve “exploiting” areas such as dynamic package, hotel only, flight only, car rental, events and activities.
Deployment in other countries
“We will be launching these new products in different markets to ensure that when we roll them out we will have the best experience,” added Sebastian Ebel, who also predicted that Tui would eventually capture “significant” market share in these new products. areas over the next three years. at five years old.
