In a four-month trading update to 31 January, issued on Thursday (6 February) the OTA said it had more than doubled offline marketing spend to drive brand awareness.
Its recent “everything’s better... on the beach” Christmas and New Year TV ad campaign was recently hailed by YouGov the best effort during the festive season, achieving the “highest uplift” in ad awareness of any brand in the UK in December.
On the Beach said it expected its efforts to pay off in the second half of the financial year, and added an increased focus on price competitiveness would also contribute to long-term gains in market share.
Its confidence comes despite capacity constraints brought on by Cook’s failure and the continued grounding of Boeing’s 737 Max aircraft. According to On the Beach, this has resulted in “significant year-on-year seat price increases for all departures”.
The OTA added it did not expect seat pricing to “normalise” in the current financial year.
However, On the Beach has hailed its “immediate actions” to capture market share driving “strong sales growth” for 2020 departures.
Elsewhere, On the Beach said more than 2,300 agents had signed up to its Classic Package Holidays portal, launched in last March following the group’s acquisition of Classic Collection.
The group will post its interim results for the six months to 31 March on 12 May.
Chief executive Simon Cooper said: “The actions we have taken in the first four months of the new financial year have accelerated our market share gain and mean we are well prepared to take advantage of capacity returning into the market.
“Our incremental investment into offline marketing activity is helping to drive significant growth in awareness of the brand nationally, and we are delighted with the performance of the Classic Package brand in its first year post-launch.”
