THOMSON has unveiled the company’s £100m, two-year e-commerce strategy with a pledge that all its major brands will be bookable on-line by December.
Sites will be rolled out during the year starting with www.thefirstresort.com which will be launched on March 21 offering in-house and rival operator product (Travel Weekly February 28). The site, which Thomson said will not directionally sell in-house products, will contain eight million holidays that will be bookable on-line.
Chief executive Charles Gurassa said:”First Resort will offer mass-market holidays and have access to other major package operators. New and existing customers will start to book through these channels and we want to encourage it.”
Although Thomson previously indicated that 30% of business could be driven via e-commerce by 2003, Gurassa declined to set targets for on-line business.
“Others may have given figures in the past but I don’t set targets,” he said.
“You cannot tell how quickly customers will migrate to the Web.”
The strategy will, in time, allow customers to book on-line in shops or in their own home through digital TV. Gurassa added that they will also look to extend its interactive TV presence, which is currently limited to Open.
While Thomson already has 37 individual Web sites across international divisions – with others being developed – group development director John Wells said not all will remain.
“We want to get individual product managers used to dealing with the Web before creating one platform,” he said.
Gurassa added that the Thomson and Lunn Poly brands will not feature on sites such as First Resort.