Thomson TUI Offline e-Tourism Strategy Case Study

Thomson TUI Offline e-Tourism Strategy - Case Study Example Hotelopia has made its presence prominent enough in the travel industry, which has resulted in its being the subject of news articles as well, which offer free publicity for itself. An example is the article that appeared on 10th September in newspapers (Dromore Leader) A favourable newspaper article about a business/company has the kind of credibility, which even the best crafted advertisement cannot have, since the reader views the article as written by an impartial observer, while the ad is a case of blowing one's own trumpet. This, notwithstanding the reality that newspaper articles on companies often are the result of a well-orchestrated publicity plan done by it, with much of the content of such an article being provided by the business concern itself to the writer. LateRooms provide customers with last minute accommodation, a facility which is not easily available offline, as a real-time offline facility covering destinations across the world is a physical impossibility. LateRooms charge the hotels a commission and not the customer. Besides, with last minute bookings, hotels are glad to provide accommodation below rack rates in order to maximise capacity utilisation, and minimise losses on account of rooms not hired out. LateRooms has been sufficiently prominent in the field, having won the award of the Hitwise UK Annual Online Performance in the Travel-Destination and Accommodation category (LateRooms Website) Winning an award is a strategy to automatically generate more business. LateRooms, by wresting the award from Lastminute.com this year, has enhanced its credibility. This is a strategy similar to the one employed by Hotelopia-getting a third party to certify the business quality, which beats putting an ad through the print media/ hoardings or online. Of course, it may be argued that a company cannot with certainty strategise to ensure winning an award. But we may reasonably assume that the company certainly can make a concerted attempt to win one. In the B2B sector, the divisions are split geographically into two, Hotelbeds and Portfoloio Incoming. Hotelbeds offers accommodation services on-line and destination services off-line to tour operators and travel agents. It has the brands Meetings, Events, Incentives and Conferences (MICE) in Asia, and Intercruises (the largest world provider of goods handling services to cruise liners). The Portfolio Incoming division "operates through a network of destination agencies worldwide", which includes separate brands for some countries-e.g. for Spain and for Greece (p 16- Results-Sept 2008) The strategies used by Thomson in its e-tourism business are world-wide coverage, excellent performance-reflected in awards won, and publicity-both self-generated and through liaising with the print media to have articles published on it. All this has resulted in enhanced returns to the company from e-tourism (p 16- Results-Sept 2008)Works Cited Dromore Leader dt. 10th Sept 2008, retrieved 10th Dec. 2008,