Skip to main content

'Why the collapse of Debenhams shows it pays to be different'

Tui
Sophie Griffiths
15 April 2019

Tui UK has been focused on it for at least the last five years. Thomas Cook, a little slower off the mark, has been pushing it for the last two. The founders of Loveholidays’ clocked it back in 2012. And this week Saga Group became the latest company to adapt its strategy to it (p8).

Sophie Griffiths Leader image

Others on the high street (Woolworths, House of Fraser, and now Debenhams) might have realised it too late, but for a number of travel businesses, differentiation – whether in own brand products, or specialist knowledge - has been a core USP for the past decade.

This week’s news that the 240-year-old department store chain - focused on offering too much variety to apparently too few customers - was teetering on the brink of administration was a timely reminder of this.

Happily for the travel sector at least, differentiation has become increasingly important for travel agents wanting to stand out from the crowd.