W hen John Donnelly opened the first Holiday Hypermarket in the UK four years ago, plenty in the industry thought he’d gone soft.
They said a ‘supermarket approach’ would not work and the hypermarkets would lack the personal touch found in other agencies.
More recently, Thomas Cook retail managing director Andrew Windsor was unconvinced about the concept and said they had to offer something different to tempt the customer. Even Airtours chairman David Crossland, in an interview with Travel Weekly earlier this year, seemed unconvinced by the hypermarkets.
Since then, both Going Places and Thomas Cook have opened hypermarkets and Thomas Cook group chief executive John Donaldson said at the ABTAConvention in Cairns that although he had been cynical about them in the past, he was beginning to change his view.
Whatever you think of the hypermarkets, there is no doubt that they have been very successful in a short period of time – at least in terms of turnover.
Contrary to the belief that they would offer a bland service and treat holidays like commodities, a lot of the success has been down to the service offered by the staff.
Donnelly has carefully recruited and poached staff who know how to treat clients. As with all areas of distribution, the hypermarkets prove that if you give the customers what they want, they’ll come back for more.
Jeremy Skidmore – editor