News

TUI UK’S retail travel agents are being given the power to tailor sales messages to their local markets so they can react as fast as rival independents on the high street.

New retail sales and operations director Miles Morgan said the move was designed to empower staff so they feel valued within the organisation, and improve shop performance.

He admitted TUI’s agencies were at a disadvantage to independents who could react more quickly to capitalise on new offers or products, such as an extra route from a local airport, because they did not have to get head office approval first.

Staff in Lunn Poly, Travel House and Callers Pegasus will be asked to use their local knowledge of the market to pull in extra sales by putting suitable deals in shop

windows, without changing the company’s core messages.

“If we can combine a well-oiled machine at a national level with a business that can react as fast as independent agents at a local level, we’ll have a powerful combination,” he said.

Shops have already been divided into customer types of ‘cities’, ‘sun fun’ and ‘well off, well travelled’, focusing the product in the shops for the type of customers in the area.

Meanwhile, Lunn Poly managers are being encouraged to come up with business plans demonstrating why their shops deserve a face-lift as part of plans to accelerate the refit programme.

Half of the retailer’s 800 shops have already been revamped, and Morgan wants the new look rolled out across the estate by 2007.