Thomas Cook has opened 11 new Cruise Con­cept Stores, revi­tal­iz­ing the brand’s retail expe­ri­ence, and bring­ing togeth­er the lat­est inno­va­tions in the com­pa­ny’s ongo­ing dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion.

For many years now, estab­lished British trav­el agent Thomas Cook has been grad­u­al­ly archi­tect­ing its own dig­i­tal turn­around. Dig­i­tal has had such a impact on con­sumer trav­el that the 173-year-old trav­el com­pa­ny has had to proac­tive­ly rein­vent itself.

In a recent inter­view with the Guardian, CEO Har­ri­et Green out­lined the impor­tance of con­tin­u­ing dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion of the brand.

“The only way you turn the doubters into believ­ers and own­ers of our cor­po­ra­tion is con­tin­u­ing to deliv­er the trans­for­ma­tion. There will always be short-term trad­ing and issues, but I think we’re incred­i­bly on track.”

Change has been embod­ied by the com­pa­ny’s ‘Sun­ny Heart’ brand­ing refresh, unit­ing the many brands and mar­ket­ing activ­i­ties of the group under a com­mon sym­bol.

Uniting Etail And Retail

One of the main chal­lenges for the trav­el agency has been in unit­ing its tra­di­tion­al strong­hold, name­ly that of high street trav­el agency, with the incred­i­ble impact that dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy has had on con­sumer pur­chas­ing cycles.

The new con­cept stores embody the “high-tech, high-touch” approach that defines Thomas Cook’s dig­i­tal strat­e­gy. Users are able to browse des­ti­na­tions on in-store tablets, and make their own trav­el arrange­ments should they wish to. Impor­tant­ly, con­sumers are also able to talk to the in-store advi­sors bring­ing the exper­tise, expe­ri­ence, and excel­lent ser­vice of Thomas Cook staff to in-store cus­tomer expe­ri­ences.

Research has shown that as much as 46 per­cent of con­sumers look for “face-to-face” advice before they are will­ing to make a final trans­ac­tion for a trav­el pur­chase.

Dream Capture

One of the prod­ucts that inte­grates online and offline retail in the trav­el brand’s con­cept stores is Dream Cap­ture. With Dream Cap­ture, when a cus­tomer sees a prod­uct they like, agents add that option to a vir­tu­al buck­et list with a sin­gle but­ton press.

Once the cus­tomer has fin­ished brows­ing, the agent emails that buck­et list to the cus­tomer at their home address. The list is then shared with friends or fam­i­ly, who then go on to view or share it on their com­put­ing devices, and increas­ing now, on their tablets.

Chair­man of the Dig­i­tal Advi­so­ry Board at Thomas Cook, John Straw, explained that it has proved to have a high­ly effec­tive con­ver­sion rate, com­bin­ing the influ­ence of advi­sors in retail stores with the abil­i­ty to research and eval­u­ate pur­chas­es dig­i­tal­ly as con­sumers are now nat­u­ral­ly inclined to do.

The brand have also imple­ment­ed “Ask and Answer,” giv­ing online cus­tomers the chance to ask spe­cif­ic ques­tions about the prod­ucts they are inter­est­ed in to the brand. The prod­uct ful­fills a clear touch­point in the pur­chase cycle, and pro­vides cus­tomers with infor­ma­tive con­tent about hotels and resorts. The reas­sur­ance con­sumers are able to gain from these answers have result­ed in a 150 per­cent increase in the con­ver­sion ratio accord­ing to ini­tial fig­ures.

John Straw, Thomas Cook chair­man of the dig­i­tal advi­so­ry board, said:

“Har­ri­ets omni-chan­nel strat­e­gy between retail and etail is start­ing to show real deliv­ery against the orig­i­nal opti­mism… specif­i­cal­ly our Dream­Cap­ture prod­uct – pro­duced from the Thomas Cook Dig­i­tal Advi­so­ry Board is pro­duc­ing excep­tion­al cross chan­nel inte­gra­tion and results”

The ‘Human Touch’

The new con­cept stores have been opened in Lake­side in Essex, as well as Aberdeen, Har­ro­gate, Gateshead, Mer­ry­hill, Liv­er­pool, Maid­stone, Dar­ling­ton, Bolton, New­port, Ply­mouth, and Fare­ham, and is a fur­ther sign of brand’s com­mit­ment to high street retail empow­ered and mod­ern­ized by dig­i­tal ini­tia­tives.

“Retail is such an impor­tant part of Thomas Cook’s omni-chan­nel approach,” said Joan­na Wild, Thomas Cook retail direc­tor. “We know that an annu­al hol­i­day is pre­cious to many, and the new stores fur­ther illus­trate our efforts to inspire cus­tomers and help make the pur­chase process as enjoy­able and effi­cient as pos­si­ble.”

The strat­e­gy is indica­tive of a wider trend with­in busi­ness­es to inte­grate retail shop­ping expe­ri­ence with dig­i­tal chan­nels, for the ben­e­fit of over­all cus­tomer expe­ri­ences. Even Ama­zon are look­ing to roll out a series of retail stores lat­er this year.

It shows that for the Thomas Cook Group, there is still a great deal of room with­in the orga­ni­za­tions “high-tech, high-touch” strat­e­gy for the “human touch.”