The Interview: Tui Hotels & Resorts’ Louise Bates

Family sales through Tui channels and independent agents are performing “very well”, according to Louise Bates, brand and product director at Tui Hotels & Resorts.

 

“The family holiday is no longer a luxury – it’s a core part of every family’s budgeting,” she says. “When they feel more cost pressure, it doesn’t stop happening. It may be that they amend the destination or the length of the holiday, but it remains a core part of a family’s annual planning. We see the market as really robust.”

 

The Tui brands most geared towards the family market are Tui Blue, Holiday Village and Tui Magic Life, which together represent a “really broad range” of trips.

 

“We also have the Tui Kids’ Club offering, where we implant an entire kids’ club into a hotel,” says Bates. “I think we’re the only UK tour operator that runs its own kids’ clubs and we run them to UK nursery standards, so we have all the appropriate qualifications, training and safety elements.

 

“It offers incredibly good value to the consumer to have what they would pay for at home included in their holiday price.”

 

In addition to the traditional option of supervised kids’ sessions, enabling parents to have some adult-only time, an increasing number of families are embracing the ‘stay and play’ offering, while sports and other whole-family activities also remain popular.

 

“There’s a lot of research suggesting that if families learn something new together, it’s an incredibly bonding experience,” says Bates.

 

Popular activities

When updating the range of activities on offer at hotels, Tui keeps a close eye on developing trends in the domestic market. 

 

“We see a rise in things like trampoline parks, so we have aerial adventure courses in our Holiday Village properties,” says Bates, citing padel as another growing activity.

 

“It’s really about trying to spot the trends of things that people are doing at home, or want to try at home but maybe don’t have the time or money to do, and giving them a taster on holiday,” she adds, noting that water‑based activities have long featured in this category.

 

“For the majority of the UK, you’re not that close to good watersports facilities. So when you go to a beach destination, it’s a great opportunity to try stuff and see whether you like it.”

Some children’s activities have recently been adapted to help promote environmental work, adds Bates. “We’ve introduced gardens and beach cleans to help give children a greater awareness of the planet and how they can contribute to looking after it better.”

 

In addition to continuing demand for multigenerational trips, an increasing number of bookings feature grandparents taking grandchildren away while the parents stay at home due to work commitments. Other groups involve grown-up siblings going on holiday with their respective families.

 

Bates says: “In normal daily life, people often don’t get the chance to spend quality time with their parents or siblings, so [holidays] become a really valuable way of ticking two boxes – we tick the family box and we have fun.”

 

Destination-wise, increasing interest in Menorca has resulted in demand for the island overtaking that for Ibiza.

 

“Ibiza is still a very big family destination, but the dynamics for Menorca are really good. It’s a very short flight, the infrastructure is effective for getting around the island and the beaches are great for families,” says Bates. “We have some very good product in Menorca, and people enjoy the laid-back atmosphere and quaintness of it.”

 

The other top-selling family destinations are Majorca, Antalya and Dalaman in Turkey, Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt and Rhodes.

 

Neurodiverse needs

Serving the needs of neurodiverse travellers has been a “really big focus” for Tui for some time, Bates says. 

 

Last year, the company introduced specialist sensory rooms in two of its Tui Blue hotels; a further four hotels in the portfolio will have sensory rooms added this summer.

 

All of Tui’s childcare and entertainment staff receive neurodiversity training, and its Holiday Village properties use a labelling system that aims to make it clear what each activity involves.

 

“We’ve introduced what we call ‘The Thingies’ – little characters that denote what type of activity it will be,” explains Bates. “There’s one with big ear defenders who’s saying it’s going to be a quiet activity, and there are others that are more active or sporty, so they help families to choose what they want to do.

 

“In line with that, we’ve created a yellow Thingy lanyard – a bit like the sunflower lanyard – which is a cute thing the kid can wear and it means all of our teams can then pay a little bit of extra attention to make sure the child is getting what they need.”

 

 

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