The platform, which has been launched in Sweden, is part of Tui’s attempt to “broaden its offer” beyond traditional package holidays and attract more new clients. This also includes dynamic packaging, as well as selling events and activities through Tui’s Musement platform, which was set up three years ago.
During the launch event on Friday (20 January) in Stockholm, Tui’s chief executive Sebastian Ebel insisted that the package market remained its “core” and new developments such as the accommodation-only service created “no risk” to its ability to sell more package holidays.
Ebel added: “We have a very clear path of growth. We want to be selling more products to existing customers and also getting new customers. It’s about having a broader customer base.”
The accommodation-only platform, which is now operational in Sweden, will be extended to Denmark, Norway and Finland in February. It currently features 15,000 hotels across 50 destinations but Tui plans to increase the content on a month-by-month basis, with the aim of having around 90,000 properties by the end of this year.
The company said this accommodation-only product would also be an “important driver” for its new dynamic packaging service, which is initially being pushed in the German market.
Tui wants to compete against the major online travel agencies by offering a more “flexible” range of hotel rates, alongside a host of other travel “components”, to both existing and new customers.
Ebel said a key part of this strategy to attract non-package customers would involve a new app which would offer all of Tui’s products for both booking and making amendments.
“It will all be in the app – it’s going to be the full range of products,” he explained. “We will have booking on the app.”
He added that Tui’s plan was to only include hotels on the accommodation-only portal with the “best ranking on quality” and they would not be looking to have “a million hotels” on sale.
“The range is huge and we’ve not contracted them before, including in cities like London,” said Ebel. “We want to broaden our offer to fulfil our customers’ needs. Accommodation-only is probably the biggest incremental market besides dynamic packaging.”
He stressed that Tui still wanted to “gain market share” within the package holiday sector, but its growth plans also involved “tapping into” areas such as dynamic packaging, hotel-only, flight-only, car rental, and events and activities.
“We will start these new products in different markets to make sure that when we roll them out we have the best experience,” added Ebel, who also predicted that Tui would eventually capture “significant” market share in these new areas within the next three to five years.
