Comments
Travel services company Thomas Cook India, in the news last couple of days over a possible change in ownership, will don a new positioning ‘Travel Smooth.' With this, it moves from its ‘Holidaywallas' proposition launched in 2009 to woo retail (individual) travellers.
While the share of retail sales (against institutional) has moved up to 35 per cent from being ‘virtually negligible' in 2009, the share of business from tier 2 and 3 towns has also moved up to 40 per cent currently.
Mr Rakshit Desai, Executive Director, Thomas Cook India, says the annual marketing spend that now ranges from Rs 20 to Rs 30 crore, has doubled in the last three years. The increase in this budget has been channelled to Tier 2 and 3 markets. Mr Desai also noted that a lot of it has gone into regional media.
“The competitive intensity there is much lower and the stickiness with customers is much higher,” he said.
A television campaign will roll out next week on TV, led by genres like cricket, cinema and news, with a selective entertainment channel strategy. Regional channels will find favour here too.
Consumer pain-points
The company had a turnover of Rs 267 crore in the year ending December 2010, up from Rs 218 crore the previous year.
Encouraged by the size of the leisure travel market doubling in two years, the new campaign will attempt to establish the comprehensive suite of services on offer from Thomas Cook.
“Having established ourselves as a serious holiday player, we wanted to tell customers about everything that we do. We spoke to our customers and other travellers to understand what the pain and pleasure points were,” explained Mr Desai.
Research commissioned by the company revealed that the pre-departure pain points were many for travellers. The proposition of ‘Travel Smooth' was arrived at on the basis of this qualitative study and Thomas Cook's ability to address the chain from planning and Visas to currency exchange.
Four years ago, all the marketing exercises were from mid-January to mid-March for Thomas Cook. Now, half the marketing initiatives are in this key period, while the rest is spread through the year — in tune with the demand.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.