cosmos unveils plans to turn business around

COSMOS has unveiled a wide-ranging business review to turn around its fortunes for next year.

This includes taking the brand upmarket, focusing on Europe and the Mediterranean, and catering for the growing trend for depackaged, tailor-made holidays.

Cosmosair managing director Terry Williamson – who was drafted in to revamp the business last year – described the operator as “a sleeping giant we need to reawaken”.

He said Cosmos had not made the most of its family heritage, failed to invest in its brand for years and lacked the “personal touch”.

“We fall down in terms of people who have not experienced our product. We need to treat customers more like guests and profile them.”

Commercial director Stuart Jackson said the brand could not be repositioned overnight and there was potential for a lower-end brand as Cosmos looks to move upmarket.

He denied the move to balance out Cosmos’ product mix in Europe, by adding more in the eastern Mediterranean, would mean it abandoning

its long-haul programme, recently rebadged Distant Dreams.

“Long-haul is still extremely important. It takes up 10% of our current business and will end up being about 15%,” he said.

Overseas operations and resort purchasing director Hugh Morgan said dropping “bottom-end” properties would allow Cosmos to escape the battle for the same apartment blocks, which has driven up prices in the last year.

Williamson added that the new approach no longer relied on increasing market share.

Cosmos has been criticised in the past because of its size – it sells half a million holidays a year, but has no shops – leaves it in the no-man’s land between vertically integrated companies and smaller independents.

“People say we sit in the middle ground in death valley but we can still be a credible player and significant in size,” said Williamson.

But he added Cosmos aimed to secure more distribution partners by using its 40-year heritage to increase trade credibility. Marketing spend for this year will be £5 million, slightly up on last year. Its focus will be on raising awareness around the key Monarch flight departure points out of Manchester, Birmingham and Gatwick and looking for tie-ups with other brands to promote itself.