There was a time when a mass market brochure looked like the product it delivered. In order to move volume, mass market operators needed to feature large, ugly, concrete block hotels with thousands of beds.
I suppose the main brochures, which the market leaders produce, still look much the same, except that the quality of the pictures and the paper have been improved and the thick front covers are UV varnished to give more of a glossy magazine look.
It is now very easy to produce a brochure which gives a very misleading view of the type of holiday which is offered inside. The latest Holiday Which? survey of tour operators drew the usual howls of protest from the market leaders.
In a year that has started badly, no-one needs such publicity, so their reaction this year was rather more vociferous than usual.
I really wonder why all those middle-class Holiday Which? readers book with large companies when they should be paying just a little bit more and travelling with the likes of the companies nearer the top of the league table.
I suspect the reason is that they just cannot judge what type of holiday they are buying by looking at the mass-market brochures or by going into one of the multiples and allowing themselves to be directionally sold the in-house holiday with the biggest discount. After all, who can resist a discount?
The end result is a dissatisfied customer who has booked the wrong kind of accommodation and travelled with the wrong group of people.
I am getting into dangerous territory here. Like it or not, people only enjoy themselves when they are travelling with like-minded holidaymakers.
Specialists survive by providing just this and somehow the public has to be educated to understand this fact. God help us if a Holiday Which? type client travelled with tours as featured in the ghastly new TV series called Sunburn.
However, over the last few years, choosing the right holiday has become even harder because the volume operators have looked with envy at the high margin, low volume niche markets and have wanted some of that, too.
I picked up a Thomson Breakaway brochure last night, being sold by a travel agency branch within a rather exclusive and expensive leisure club.
The brochure features a range of excellent specialist-type accommodation (one hotel only has three rooms) in France, Spain, Belgium, Ireland, Switzerland, Holland, Austria and Italy and, though it says in small print that clients should contact their travel agent, there is a large half-page advertisement promoting their seven-days-a-week Thomson Breakaway Direct booking service.
I have not looked at the brochure carefully, but I assume that flexibility is there, although choice is limited.
However, it is now a matter of image and this brochure, carrying the Thomson name, will eventually be tarred with the same brush as the mainstream product.
Thomson has always been the best of the giants but its performance in the Holiday Which? survey was still only average.
I have a feeling that the Breakaway product is better than average and the brochure has a specialist feel, but it’s still Thomson – and to most that means volume and cheap.
People only enjoy themselves when travelling with like-minded holidaymakers, yet many pick the wrong kind of break. The answer could be to book through a specialist