Tui Calls Time On Thomson With Revamp

Tui Calls Time On Thomson With Revamp
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One of the UK’s best known travel brands will disappear on Wednesday following a revamp by its owner.

The Thomson name, which is more than 50 years old, is being ditched as German group Tui brings it under its own logo.

The UK is the last of Tui’s markets to see the rebrand, which was announced in 2015.

Thomson’s 600 shops have been renovated to display the Tui name and the company has been running a television advertising campaign to inform customers that “Thomson is changing to Tui”.

Tui UK and Ireland managing director Nick Longman said he hopes the move will boost sales as the firm expands its range of holidays from traditional bucket and spade breaks.

In an interview with the Press Association, he said: “Thomson is a great heritage brand with rich nostalgia and that’s fantastic, we’ve all had great Thomson holidays over the years, but it can also be a bit limiting.

“Holidays are changing, people want different things, not just seven and 14 (night) beach packages.

“They want to go for different durations, with different generations of their family, do city breaks, do tours, all those different types of holiday experiences.

“I think that it can be harder to change people’s perception of a brand when you try to introduce a wider type of holiday.

“Tui is a much more contemporary brand and certainly the research we did said people are much more likely to consider going on those other types of holidays if they go with Tui.”

The Thomson brand was established in 1965 by Canadian media baron Roy Thomson.

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Roy Thomson established the brand in 1965 (PA)

Mr Longman insisted that the firm would “still do the things we’ve done before”, but also appeal to a broader range of customers.

He went on: “It’s a great thing to be part of a truly global brand as Tui’s leading travel business in the world.

“It brings us a wealth of expertise, it means that we can utilise the knowledge of all of the representatives we have serving our customers overseas, doing that as one group.

“I think we can provide better experiences, better service for our customers.”

Tui marked the announcement by unveiling a prototype of an innovative system which matches customers’ facial and emotional responses to images of destinations and experiences to calculate their perfect trip.

The firm claims the Destination U technology is a “world first in travel retail”.

It hopes to make the system available for public use “in the near future”.