Having read the recent article by ABTA’s Chief Executive Mark Tanzer in the travel press, in which he discusses his views on financial protection within the industry, I strongly feel his plea for more wide-ranging financial protection should be seen as a cynical ploy to protect ABTA’s tour operator members and does little to advance [...]
I recently read a really interesting article in Forbes, which claimed that the growth jobs of the future are forecasted to be in social care, personal care and sales retailing. This follows a theme set out by Daniel Pink, in his thought provoking book ‘A Whole New Mind’(1), in which he writes: “The future belongs [...]
Great brands that people are loyal to, especially now in the social media age, live by their stories. To quote the late Steve Jobs: “I get asked a lot why Apple’s customers are so loyal. It’s not because they belong to the Church of Mac! That’s ridiculous”. The quote reminded me of a great blog [...]
Friday 13th did prove to be an eventful day at Travel Counsellors, but not for sinister or fateful reasons. We celebrated the best sales day in the TC family’s 16 year history. The success of our Travel Counsellors so far this year is not unique and there are others in the services and retail sectors [...]
At the company’s head office in Bolton we have a team of over 200 people dedicated to supporting our individual Travel Counsellor’s, ensuring they have everything they need to provide the very best travel service possible for their customers. As part of the vast range of accommodation, flights, car rental choices and everything else in [...]
The New Year at Travel Counsellors started with a bang, well a fizz at least (!) with a visit from the Queensland Tourist Board. As all our agents are home based, TV (we call it TCTV) is an essential part of how we communicate. We have our own TV studio at our head offices in [...]
In his biography of Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson’s writes that the blue print for Apple’s marketing was based on 3 principles – empathy (emotionally connect with the customer), focus (disregard the things that are not important) and impute (i.e. people do judge a book by its cover so presentation is all). Steve Jobs understood perhaps [...]
Today Thomas Cook announced their decision to close loss-making shops, claiming this is related to the growth in e-commerce – or customers booking it on-line. There is no doubt that across a number of retail sectors there is a growth in on-line business. What is not clear is to what extent that growth is governed [...]
The online discounting campaign launched by Thomas Cook last week is not surprising given the need to boost short term bookings and cash flow, but the management at Cook’s will understand that discounting to get more direct business is not going to fix its woes. Kevin Roberts, the CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi wrote recently [...]
…Harrison Bush! Harrison took part in our TC Kids one day special, which entertained all the children of our Travel Counsellors who were off school during the national public sector strike. The competition was ‘Imagination Station’ and involved all of the TC Kids writing a story and illustrating it by putting together a collage. Here is Harrison’s [...]