Establishing Tui as a truly global brand will enable it to open up new destinations for the UK, northern region chief executive Dave Burling told the ITT conference in Sorrento this week.
Explaining how Tui, Europe’s largest travel group, will forge continued growth Burling said “successful travel brands of the future will need to offer a huge global range”.
Tui’s new masterbrand strategy under which it will ditch its Thomson brand in the UK later this year, and this will spearhead growth in emerging markets like China and South America.
Tui has sealed a joint venture in China with CTS Group and this will be one of a number the firm does that forms part of a growth strategy to 2022.
Burling said this will lead to rapid growth in Tui’s own-brand hotel business which will provide new product for European customers which it will serve with direct flights.
“While we will continue to grow and be successful in existing markets we have to be clear the global reach of Tui will help us to enter new markets,” Burling said.
Tui properties in the likes of the Caribbean will increasingly draw customers from Asian source markets making the operator more agile and flexible as it spreads its footprint across destinations and markets across the globe
Burling said although becoming more global was a core ambition technology will allow Tui to operate on a more persona level and he said the firm will continue to invest in new technologies.
“You have to invest wisely in IT,” he said. “We need to have best in class websites, mobile apps and CRM, we are investing heavily in a global consumer platform so we can have in depth knowledge of their preferences and so we can continually engage with them on a personal level.”
Burling said the trend towards greater personalisation was still in its infancy and that Tui will move more towards personalised pricing and product offering.
He said he was optimistic about the future for the travel industry due to the growth it has achieved in recent years despite some major challenges.
“Our industry has changed out of all recognition in a couple of generations but over the past three years we have achieved some excellent results. Our bottom line has improved continuously by over 10%.
“There is always the next set of growth targets still to hit. Year after year you’re trying t to achieve more growth and that takes us out of our comfort zone.”
Burling said there are three reasons why he was confident of growth: the rising number of middle class people who will spend on travel; consumers increasingly “safeguarding” their holiday spend; and the ability of the travel industry to innovate and change.
“The more difficult things get, the more the industry will dig deep and the better the new ideas and experiences will be. The first thing we need to be at Tui is flexible.
“In these days of geo-political uncertainty, you cannot accurately predict demand in advance as we used to. We need to have flexibility in the way we plan programmes so they are not too fixed.”
Burling said Tui staff were crucial to executing its vision and it had to recruit the best people across the globe. “The philosophy of Tui is very much better before bigger,” he said.