Teletext Holidays has agreed an exclusive partnership that will see it promoting cruise deals through the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, thereby reaching 43% of the potential UK market.
Although the titles’ parent company, A&N Media, is also Teletext’s parent, it was chosen after a tendering process, beating other trade rivals to the deal.
Victoria Sanders, Teletext Holidays managing director, said the revenue share agreement had to be right for both parties and it was not a case of keeping the deal “in-house”.
“We do not know how many other people, or who, they were talking to. If this was not the right deal they would have walked away,” she said.
The deal will see monthly eight-page supplement cruise guides produced (seven this year) including editorial and exclusive and added-value cruise deals.
Sanders said Teletext did not want to go down the discounting route and would be working with lines to agree offers not available elsewhere.
Teletext Holidays has operated a cruise department for the last eight to nine months taking calls from Teletext pages and from advertising on its website.
“The conversions are great and the average booking value is going up all the time,” Sanders said. “It made a lot of sense for us to pitch for this partnership.”
The Daily Mail deal comes as the call centre team is expanding and more homeworkers are being taken on, added Sanders.
“We are on a recruitment drive,” she said. “We have seen a good start to the year. Cruise is one of those holiday types that has had a good last 12 months and that will continue.
“You can see by the new products that are coming on stream that this is definitely a sector of the market which is not seeing any decline at all.”
The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday audience is almost the perfect demographic for cruise, with typical readers being aged in the mid-50s and relatively affluent.
The new partnership with Teletext Holidays goes live on March 1.