COSMOS has unveiled a wide-ranging business review to
turn around its fortunes for next year.
This includes taking the brand upmarket, focusing on
Europe and the Mediterranean, and catering for the growing trend for
depackaged, tailor-made holidays.
Cosmosair managing director Terry Williamson – who was
drafted in to revamp the business last year – described the operator as “a
sleeping giant we need to reawaken”.
He said Cosmos had not made the most of its family
heritage, failed to invest in its brand for years and lacked the “personal
touch”.
“We fall down in terms of people who have not
experienced our product. We need to treat customers more like guests and
profile them.”
Commercial director Stuart Jackson said the brand
could not be repositioned overnight and there was potential for a lower-end
brand as Cosmos looks to move upmarket.
He denied the move to balance out Cosmos’ product mix
in Europe, by adding more in the eastern Mediterranean, would mean it
abandoning
its long-haul programme, recently rebadged Distant
Dreams.
“Long-haul is still extremely important. It takes up
10% of our current business and will end up being about 15%,” he said.
Overseas operations and resort purchasing director
Hugh Morgan said dropping “bottom-end” properties would allow Cosmos to escape
the battle for the same apartment blocks, which has driven up prices in the
last year.
Williamson added that the new approach no longer
relied on increasing market share.
Cosmos has been criticised in the past because of its
size – it sells half a million holidays a year, but has no shops – leaves it in
the no-man’s land between vertically integrated companies and smaller
independents.
“People say we sit in the middle ground in death
valley but we can still be a credible player and significant in size,” said
Williamson.
But he added Cosmos aimed to secure more distribution
partners by using its 40-year heritage to increase trade credibility. Marketing
spend for this year will be £5 million, slightly up on last year. Its focus
will be on raising awareness around the key Monarch flight departure points out
of Manchester, Birmingham and Gatwick and looking for tie-ups with other brands
to promote itself.