Holiday Taxis is planning to double the size of its business in Germany by plugging into the country’s major dynamic packaging brands.
In Germany, most holidays are still booked through travel agents, with only 10-15% booked entirely online.
But dynamic packaging –or ‘dynamic bundling’ as it is referred to in Germany – is starting to grow, driven by the major companies’ “X-brands” – X-Tui, X-TC and X-Rewe.
Holiday Taxis managing director Peter Hilton explained the three companies collectively had 70% of the country’s entire retail distribution, and that his company was now at a point where “we’re bookable on most of these travel agent systems and we’re starting to roll it out now”.
He added that Holiday Taxis was already providing an XML feed into X-Tui, and will add X-TC and X-Rewe shortly.
“They are all gradually plugging us into their systems. We’re already plugged into X-Tui, and will be into X-TC and X-Rewe soon. That could double the size of our business within two years in Germany.
Hilton added that the company had been developing its international market for four years now, with international business is up 220%, albeit off a small base.
He revealed they were just about to get the site translated into German, Italian, French, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Swedish and Russian.
“We’re developing northern Europe first as customers fly from there to the south of Europe where we’re strong because we want volume. Spain and Italy are softer markets where we’re working with other established companies.”
Holiday Taxis has also “ramped up massively” in terms of its work within the cruise sector and with tailormade travel.
“We’re already operating strongly with cruise passengers in the European favourites like Palma, Barcelona, Venice, Rome etc, but we’re now really ramping up our long-haul, in the Far East, Asia, the Caribbean, West Coast and Florida,” said sales director Ian Coyle. “We’re working with a lot of cruise dynamic packagers.”
He added: “Our business was built on the back of airport-resort private transfers, but we now do a lot of excursions in resort and have also moved into tour operating by providing the shuttles for operators because of the incredibly good rates we can now get because of the volumes we deliver. Lots of tour operators are now taking advantage of our buying power.”