Tui Travel needs to do more to educate third party retailers about its product, the operator’s northern region chief executive told this week’s ITT conference.
Dave Burling said the firm’s distribution and retail strategy has been “pretty consistent” for seven to eight years.
“We want to reach out to travel agency partners,” he said, “particularly when we can increase the amount of education about the product we have.
“We need to do more to educate third party trade. In pockets of the UK we have strong relationships with trade partners.
“The high street has seen something of a revival as rents go down and the costs of operating online increase
“Go back 10 years, there was a lot of change. Where we are now is a consistent position. We do not have an aspiration to change from the current position.
“We need to really understand from the trade what are the things we can do.”
Over the years Tui has been particularly aggressive in its commission cutting for third party agents and driving business direct.
Over 90% of its distribution is now “controlled” through its own channels, but agents can still earn good commissions selling particular products from certain departure ports.
Burling said the high street has seen something of a revival as rents go down and the costs of operating online increase. “Retail is proving to be a lot more resilient as a business than maybe was felt five or ten years ago,” he said.
No amount of development in technology or artificial intelligence will ever see it match “best in class” human agents, Burling added.