TRAVEL DEALS DIRECT TARGETS LATE BOOKINGS

TELEVISION agency Travel Deals Direct has revealed plans to expand its product range substantially and move fully into the lates market as it steps up competition with rival TV Travel Shop.

The plan is the result of a decision to use UrbanWeb’s Holidays By Phone call centre instead of MyTravel’s Holidayline centre and follows the adoption by Travel Deals Direct of a new corporate logo. It comes as TV Travel Shop is sold to media giant USA Networks and as competition increases in the TV marketplace with Thomas Cook TV and Sky’s forthcoming travel channel.

Holidays By Phone, run by Steve Endacott, is recruiting up to 100 new staff for the Manchester centre over the next year, in part to accommodate the new business.

The deal means Travel Deals Direct can offer product from a wider variety of operators and tourist boards and increase its independence because it will be less tied to MyTravel. It has also led to the creation of a 200-page Teletext section of late deals – previously two pages – for viewers to flick through on screen.

Commercial director Gary Wardrope is now negotiating contracts with other tour operators but stressed Airtours would remain the agency’s top supplier.

He said: “We wanted to broaden the product range – before we mainly offered Airtours’ products. We are now dealing with an independent call centre.

“We will be able to sell different types of holidays that we didn’t sell before. We didn’t offer many lates before because we didn’t have a big enough team to do it.”

The move is also based on technology available at the new call centre, which can separate calls relating to different types of bookings such as city breaks, clubbing or cruise holidays. These are then fed to dedicated staff with specific product knowledge.

Wardrope added: “We will be the first on TV to do this. We believe this is absolutely crucial. Price is also important but we are going to concentrate on customer service.”

Endacott labelled the phone technology “direct connect to a specialist”.

“It’s niche retailing. Travel Deals Direct can have the coverage on television and then the experts at the end of the phone,” he added.

Endacott’s business has also designed a new lates section for the agency’s relaunched website.

Both the site and the television channel direct customers to a phone number to make bookings.