Tesco to offer customers new travel service

Tesco to offer customers new travel service

Report by LEE WINTER

SUPERMARKETgroup Tesco has linked up with Going Places to launch a commission-free telephone foreign currency and traveller’s cheques service.

The move comes less than a month after the retail giant launched a range of in-store travel insurance packs available at check-out tills (Travel Weekly August 14 2000.)

Customers will be able to dial a local rate telephone number and order traveller’s cheques and foreign currency up to a value of £2,500 with the promise of next day delivery if orders are placed before 2pm.

An administration charge of £5 will be made to cover the cost of delivery.

Leaflets advertising the service are now on display at 100 stores in major towns and cities, with plans to distribute them to other outlets over the coming months.

Tesco Personal Finance media relations manager Fay Hogg said the decision to offer the service was an obvious move after the launch of its travel insurance scheme currently on trial at seven stores.

She said: “We recognised there was a movement of interest towards last-minute holiday booking.

“It’s all about adding value and convenience to the customer experience.

“That’s the reason we started the pay-at-the-till insurance and now this service. Because of the work involved implementing these two products, we don’t have any plans for another travel-related product in the near future.”

Hogg said agents have nothing to fear from its latest incursion into the travel industry. “Competition is a very good thing, certainly for the customer,” she said.

“Agents should welcome the competition. It heightens people’s awareness of where they can get traveller’s cheques and foreign currency. Most people do it at the airport which is often not the best value for money.”

A spokesman for Thomas Cook, which has a leading 24% share of the foreign-exchange market, said the company wasn’t “shaking in its boots,” adding it already offered a similar service.

She said: “It is a new venture for them, while Thomas Cook has provided money for people going abroad for 150 years. We are an established name in what is already a competitive market.”

Group moves into foreign-exchange market