Thomas Cook Concept Stores Bring Digital Innovation To The High Street

Trav­el brand Thomas Cook has opened 11 new Cruise Con­cept Stores in which con­sumers will find ful­ly inte­grat­ed dig­i­tal retail expe­ri­ences.

Pat Hong By Pat Hong from Linkdex. Join the discussion » 0 comments

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. Thomascookgroup

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.”

Pat Hong

Written by Pat Hong

Editor at Linkdex/Inked, Linkdex

Pat covers the SEO industry, digital marketing trends, and anything and everything around Linkdex. He also authors Linkdex's data analysis and reports, analysing the state of search in various industries.

Inked is published by Linkdex, the SEO platform of choice for professional marketers.

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