TELEVISION agency
Travel Deals Direct has revealed plans to expand its product range
substantially and move fully into the lates market as it steps up competition
with rival TV Travel Shop.
The plan is the
result of a decision to use UrbanWeb’s Holidays By Phone call centre instead of
MyTravel’s Holidayline centre and follows the adoption by Travel Deals Direct
of a new corporate logo. It comes as TV Travel Shop is sold to media giant USA
Networks and as competition increases in the TV marketplace with Thomas Cook TV
and Sky’s forthcoming travel channel.
Holidays By Phone,
run by Steve Endacott, is recruiting up to 100 new staff for the Manchester
centre over the next year, in part to accommodate the new business.
The deal means
Travel Deals Direct can offer product from a wider variety of operators and
tourist boards and increase its independence because it will be less tied to
MyTravel. It has also led to the creation of a 200-page Teletext section of
late deals – previously two pages – for viewers to flick through on screen.
Commercial
director Gary Wardrope is now negotiating contracts with other tour operators
but stressed Airtours would remain the agency’s top supplier.
He said: “We
wanted to broaden the product range – before we mainly offered Airtours’
products. We are now dealing with an independent call centre.
“We will be able
to sell different types of holidays that we didn’t sell before. We didn’t offer
many lates before because we didn’t have a big enough team to do it.”
The move is also
based on technology available at the new call centre, which can separate calls
relating to different types of bookings such as city breaks, clubbing or cruise
holidays. These are then fed to dedicated staff with specific product
knowledge.
Wardrope added:
“We will be the first on TV to do this. We believe this is absolutely crucial.
Price is also important but we are going to concentrate on customer service.”
Endacott labelled
the phone technology “direct connect to a specialist”.
“It’s niche
retailing. Travel Deals Direct can have the coverage on television and then the
experts at the end of the phone,” he added.
Endacott’s
business has also designed a new lates section for the agency’s relaunched
website.
Both the site and
the television channel direct customers to a phone number to make bookings.