Tui and Thomas Cook will become more distinct from one another as they increasingly become defined by their differing psychologies.
Speaking at the Aito conference in Brussels, Ian Ailles, who is the managing director of European Rentals for Wyndham Exchange and Rentals, said while Tui has always worked as an operator, Thomas Cook has a far stronger background as a high street retailer.
And as was shown by the recent proposed merger of Cooks with The Co-operative Travel, he predicted both businesses will revert to type as they continue to battle with a difficult market.
Ailles said: “I’d argue that Tui and Thomas Cook are practising quite different strategies; they come from different heritages.
“Tui has an operator’s heritage, owning hotels, Thomas Cook comes from a retail heritage; I think we’ll see some of those heritages coming back to the fore.”
However, he added neither companies’ future strategies should necessarily be seen as a threat to independent tour operators.
“Tui will continue to run a mass market operation but they would probably shrink in size as they will be optimising it and I expect them to continue to buy small businesses and run them but not necessarily in the UK,” Ailles said.
“Thomas Cook and the Co-operative (merger) makes absolute sense. If independents have a good clear proposition that’s not in competition with the mainstream then Cooks and Co-op will look to sell it.
“Culturally you’ll see Cooks trying to go back to its roots and saying ‘I can offer the consumer everything but in certain core areas I’ll offer it’s mine first’.”
Ailles added the bigger problem independents will face, is a continuing depressed market largely thanks to the 500,000 public sector job cuts.
“I struggle to see how 2011 or 12 is going to be a great consumer year,” he said.