Ryan Cotton told the Abta Travel Marketing Conference that the new operator, which bought the brand name of the collapsed 178-year-old business, was attracting a younger demographic.
“Considering Thomas Cook is a legacy brand, our average age is younger, whereas the old business was 60-plus heavy. How much of that is Covid and how much is a shift it is hard to say, time will tell.”
The new operator is an OTA, which, Cotton acknowledged, was also likely to affect its demographic.
“Google has always looked favourably on Thomas Cook,” he added, explaining that most of the new company’s marketing work so far had been on SEO, followed by paid search.
“The next stop is going to be branding, it’s about re-establishing trust in the Thomas Cook brand and communicating what we are, which is a digital brand with a customer-facing ethos,” he explained.
He said YouTube would be among marketing channels that the operator would use. “The outlook for us should be steady and significant growth for the next two or three years,” he said.
Cotton also noted that, despite the cost of living crisis, bookings were holding up, with the majority still for four- and five-star hotels.
“Maybe it’s because [the customers] were in Wales last year and they got peed on all week,” he joked.
But he added that it was a duty for travel companies over the coming months of the crisis to help customers find a holiday that they could afford.
Asked about post-pandemic trends, Cotton said he believed flexible booking was here to stay but that it may come at a cost from next year.
He also believed that super late bookings would tail off from 2023.
Regarding customers’ demand for sustainability, he added: “It’s coming but I don’t think it’s really here yet.”
