Thomascook.com will be “unrecognisable” within a year, e-commerce director Andy Tidy has pledged.
Tidy – who took on the role previously held by Carol Dray at the start of the year – said his priority was to work on the main consumer site.
Within a year the site will have the capability to serve the needs of a range of online communities similar to those already offered by a number of rival travel sites, he added. “We will have the technical ability to do it,” he said. However, he would not reveal what the site planned to offer at this stage.
Tidy is also reviewing the site’s booking processes and ways the company’s sites can work more effectively as a group. “There are questions like how many sites do we need, do we need more, do we need different booking journeys?” he said.
He hinted the review could look at having one booking engine for all its sites.
Meanwhile, the company will continue to look at ways to move agent bookings across from viewdata to online bookings, said Tidy. “You have to give agents something better, you can’t force them to change,” he said.
For more news on developments at Thomas Cook including this week’s publication of its Customer Challenge report see this week’s Travel Weekly.