Consortium showcases five holiday deals in monthly episode of Worldchoice TV on shopping channel Ideal World. Lee Hayhurst watches the show being filmed in Peterborough
Long gone are the days when shopping for holidays on television meant scrolling through endless Teletext pages packed full of offers before picking up the phone.
Selling deals live on TV isn’t a new concept – many will remember TV Travel Shop, which closed in 2004 – but it’s failed to deliver anything like the kind of audience cut-through the web has.
However, agency consortium Worldchoice believes television can work for travel and this year it has been working with TV shopping channel Ideal World on a monthly show.
Last week the fifth in the series was aired and Travel Weekly was invited along to Ideal World’s headquarters in Peterborough to see how the show is put together.
Also there were some Worldchoice and Travel Trust Association agents interested to know how they could make the most of this new opportunity.
Commercial break
Gary Lewis, managing director of Worldchoice and TTA parent The Travel Network Group (TNG), said the TV show was part of a new effort to help members grow.
Lewis first spoke about this plank of TNG’s strategy at the consortium’s annual overseas conference in Slovenia in May last year ahead of revealing plans for the TV show in October.
He said it was part of a wider “blue-chip” marketing strategy designed to showcase what the group could do for operators prepared to supply differentiated product.
But it is also demonstrating how a consortium can be, in effect, the in-house marketing division for its members, offering national exposure and the right skill set.
He said the concept treated all 860 Travel Network Group members as if they were owned by the group to drive as much business to them as possible.
“The commercial terms are key, but the differential is running blue-chip marketing so our members see us as their marketing department,” Lewis said.
“How do we get customers to buy now? It becomes about the product – about what product we can get that’s different.
“There’s no reason why we cannot bring that differentiated product to our members’ customers, but we have to have somewhere to
put it.”
Television is just one part of the strategy, which also includes traditional point-of-sale collateral, print advertising, magazines, websites, mobile apps and email communication.
And Worldchoice is hoping to emulate the sort of success another travel firm has had selling on Ideal World – Planet Cruise’s Amazing Cruise Show has been running for six years.
Switching channel
It’s still early days but the ambition is for Worldchoice TV to gain in popularity so that it airs at least weekly, and to open up the fulfilment of calls from the live show to more members.
Calls currently go to Cambridge-based Premier Holidays because it has the call centre capacity to cope and, with the show in its infancy, there had to be a controlled environment.
However, around 40 agents have signed up to be on the Worldchoice website and they are starting to see enquiries generated by the TV exposure
and repeats of the live show.
Each 50-minute live show goes out at 8pm and features five exclusive deals that are put together by the TNG central marketing team in partnership with key suppliers.
Making it click
Television selling is highly regulated by the Advertising Standards Authority so prices must be accurate at the time of airing but there is scope to tweak offers right up to going live.
Imagery, video and offer details are supplied by TNG, while a strict running order ensures each partner gets its fair share of exposure.
All selling is done by the Ideal World presenter, but Worldchoice supplies two experts – business development manager Karen Oates and freelance broadcaster Roger Mallock.
Lewis said Worldchoice was learning about what works for operators, and tourist boards were coming forward to ask about getting offers on TV.
“The live show is all about setting the scene to bring calls back over the next seven to 10 days,” he said.
“This is about re-energising the Worldchoice name. We have 280 shops, so it makes sense to use it as the consumer-facing brand.”