iPads for Tui Reps

Tui ships iPads to Cyprus, mobilising staff to interact

By Lee Hayhurst

May 15, 2013 08:04 AM GMT

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Tui Travel has started trialling use of iPads with its overseas reps and digital notice boards in properties in Cyprus ahead of a roll out to all its destinations next year.

Ian Chapman, director of holiday experience at the travel giant, said the use of technology was all about enhancing the customer experience as Tui seeks to put distance between it and its opposition along with its exclusive 'differentiated' hotels.

Customers will also be offered free Wi-Fi in coaches on transfers and in most hotel public areas.

Arming reps with iPads - 75 had been shipped to Cyprus - is intended to encourage direct contact between in-resort staff and customers allowing them to ask questions and plan their trip, including booking childcare and excursions before they travel. In-store agents could also use them to make inquiries on behalf of clients.

The additional services the technology will offer emanate from customer research and focus groups Tui has conducted with one million clients. The initiative will be available to customers through the new MyThomson and MyFirstChoice mobile apps launched last week.

Chapman said: "Prior to departure we are going to give customers far more information. They can get information direct from the holiday advisor, they will see pictures of their rep and all the holiday details.

"Before they go consumers can download their welcome meeting but these will be very targeted to couples, families, people who are returning. Consumers want to know about their demographic and care more about what they want to do on holiday."

Interactive notice boards in hotels will feature Twitter feeds and live information about transfer departures and flights and videos showcasing activities.

Customers will receive a personal email from their rep offering information about the hotel and resort. Chapman said it will enable Tui to promote its expertise in answering detailed questions from customers above and beyond other web-based information services including Google.

"Just as we are differentiating our hotels, providing customers with holidays they cannot find elsewhere, we are doing the same with the service we provide.

"We are mobilising our teams overseas and making them more accessible to holidaymakers, so they can further benefit and utilise their expertise before departing or whilst sat by the pool."

Other services that will be offered include pre-departure hotel check-in, activity planners and downloadable out and about guides.

The Cyprus Holiday Village has opened a Twitter feeds under the identity @HVCyprus.

In total just under 1,000 iPads will be distributed across Tui's destinations worldwide once roll out is complete.

Staff have undergone social media training, Chapman said, and Tui has implemented a social media protocol and staff issued a list of dos and donts. "We have told to our staff they are all responsible. They know what needs to be done, they have free reign to interact with customers," he said. Staff have been asked to respond to requests and questions within 24 hours.

Hard times warm welcome

Sunday Times Travel

Interesting read

Report reveals aircraft had narrow miss with 'unidentified object'

May 01, 2013 15:00PM GMT


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A passenger aircraft had a narrow miss with an unidentified object, later described by the pilot as a posible "microlight", while flying into Glasgow airport.

A report by the UK Airprox Board said investigators were unable to determine what the object was during the incident involving the Airbus A320 on December 2.

The report reveals that as the aircraft made its final approach to Glasgow Airport on December 2 the pilot saw an "object ‘loom ahead’ at a range of about 100m".

The pilot assessed the risk of collission as "high" after the object - which was described as "bigger than a balloon" - passed about 300ft underneath the aircraft.

A cockpit transcript from the report includes a conversation between the aircraft staff and a controller at Glasgow Airport. The pilot asked the controller if there was "anything in the area" after seeing the blue and yellow object.

When asked if he thought it may have been a "glider or something like that" the pilot replied: "Well maybe a microlight. It just looked too big for a balloon."

At the time of the incident, the A320 was flying with its landing lights on and in clear conditions.

Search action was taken with no result and the A320 pilot stated his intention to file an Airprox, which investigates near misses.

The Airprox report concluded: "Investigation of the available surveillance sources was unable to trace any activity matching that described by the A320 pilot. Additionally there was no other information to indicate the presence or otherwise of activity in the area."

The report said the board deemed it unlikely that the object was a fixed wing aircraft, helicopter or hot air balloon. It was also thought that a meteorological balloon would appear on the radar.

The report said the Airprox board could not discount the object being a glider, but said it was unlikely that one would be operating in the area because of low temperatures and constrained airspace.

Cyprus decides on a bailout thin majority says yes

By Michele Kambas

NICOSIA (Reuters) - Cyprus's parliament decides on Tuesday whether to back a bailout imposed by its EU partners, with approval likely from a thin majority against mounting calls for the island to exit the euro.

Lawmakers were due to meet in an extraordinary session at 4 p.m. (2:00 p.m. British time) to ratify the terms of the aid, which is conditional on Cyprus winding down its second-largest bank and slapping heavy losses on uninsured depositors in another.

No single party has a majority in the 56-member parliament, and the government is counting on support from members of its three party centre-right coalition which have 29 seats in total.

"The situation is extremely difficult," said Finance Minister Harris Georgiades. Without a bailout, Cyprus would face "incomparably tougher difficulties" and a fiscal "nightmare", he told lawmakers on Monday.

Communist AKEL, in government until it lost presidential elections in February, said it planned to vote against. It has 19 seats in parliament. The socialist Edek party, with 5 seats, said it would also reject the bill.

Attempts to agree on a bailout triggered financial chaos on the island last month, when parliament rejected an initial plan to force both insured and uninsured depositors - those holding less than 100,000 euros (84,517 pounds) in savings - to pay a levy to fund the recapitalisation of two banks heavily exposed to debt-crippled Greece.

It was followed by a two-week shutdown of banks. The fallback option was to wind down one of the banks, Laiki, and impose losses of up to 60 percent in uninsured deposits in a second, Bank of Cyprus.

AKEL, which had made the initial application for financial aid in June 2012, said onerous terms offered by Cyprus's EU partners were compelling enough for the island to seek alternative sources of funding.

"Cyprus's only option is a solution outside the loan agreement and the Memorandum of Understanding. Seeking such a solution is possibly tantamount to a decision to exit the euro," it said in a statement.

(Reporting By Michele Kambas; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Cyprus Survival

Opinion: What's the magic mix that will help Cyprus pull a rabbit from the hat?

By Noel Josephides

Apr 29, 2013 08:05AM GMT


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By Noel Josephides, managing director Sunvil Holidays

Now that the Cypriot banking industry has been dismantled by the European Union the island has very little option but to develop its tourism industry even further.

Is this possible in 2013? Can Cyprus pull another rabbit out of the bag, as it did in 1974 after the Turkish invasion?

In 1974 there was no infrastructure in the south of the island. All the tourist development was in Kyrenia and Famagusta, both resorts now occupied by the Turks.

Paphos was a small provincial town with just the Paphos Beach Hotel and Limassol had only the Amathus Beach.

In Ayia Napa there was nothing other than the Nissi Beach Hotel. So, the south was ripe for development by those who had already honed their developers' skills in the now-occupied areas.

The scale of the development in Cyprus took everyone's breath away, even those of us who were used to the pace of development we had seen in the boom resorts of Famagusta and Kyrenia.

I remember even then how we criticised what was going on, saying that the island was being over-developed.

So, the developers were allowed to set about creating the Cyprus we know now.

There were controls only in theory - the government regarded the building industry as being just as important as the tourism sector.

A few years ago, the building industry was regarded as number two to the banking and offshore sector.

The respected Cypriot surveyors A Loizou have recently stated that there are 252,000 empty shops, apartments, offices and houses in the south of the island.

That is an incredible figure, given that the population is under a million.

To put it bluntly, the price of these units has collapsed and they have to be filled before any more are built. That means, of course, that the building industry has nowhere to go and nothing to build.

Can the tourism industry fill these empty beds, many of which are unlicensed?

In 1974 there could only be growth in Cyprus because there was no real competition from other destinations and very few beds on the island.

In 2013 we face a very different situation; there is now competition from Egypt, Turkey, Tunisia, Croatia and Dubai, resorts which simply did not exist in 1974.

If Cyprus is to generate more revenue from tourism to replace that lost from the banking sector, it needs at least another million tourists a year. That's an increase of 50%.

To increase tourist arrivals by such a percentage will need a drop in prices of 30% to 40% and an approach to a wide variety of markets, including reaching out to a cheaper clientele which Cyprus has never previously sought.

Prices will have to drop anyway because the resident population is being forced to accept salary decreases of 25% to 30%; the economy has been ruined by Brussels.

With reduced salaries will come lower prices in shops, restaurants and hotels because local people will not be able to afford the current very high prices.

Where will the extra million visitors come from?

It is unlikely that they will come from the UK. Over the last 13 years, numbers from the UK have been steadily falling. Other destinations have become fashionable, with modern bed-stock suited to the mass market carried by Tui, Thomas Cook, Jet2 and Cosmos.

But, even more importantly, the market from the UK has been increasingly dominated by budget airlines which have been encouraged to fly to the island by the Cyprus Government and generous handouts. Let me explain.

Last year, when the crisis hit Greece, which is served by the more traditional charter market, the market was kick-started by very low prices through tour operators.

For instance, at this time last year, my own company, Sunvil, was costing Greek packages with a flight price of £80 when the actual cost to us was nearer £250; we had no option but to do this.

We could not hand our charter seats back, so we had to create very cheap packages using our charter flights and committed accommodation.

We have no committed seats to Cyprus because Sunvil now, in common with many other operators, simply puts together packages based on bought-in seats from scheduled and no-frills carriers; even in April and May, you can't buy these seats for less than about £240.

Tour operators have steadily reduced charter capacity to Cyprus because they have been angered by the Cyprus government's support of budget carriers.

Without charter seats it is impossible to force-feed tourists to a destination.

Additionally, there are now no mid-size tour operators left because these have been destroyed by the growth of the no-frills carriers and the increasing dominance of Tui and Thomas Cook.

Both the big two now increasingly operate to properties where they have exclusivity and which are generally all-inclusive.

For the economy of a destination like Cyprus, the all-inclusive model is harmful.

So, can the Russian and Eastern European markets create the extra million annual arrivals?

The Russians have been growing at an enormous rate because their model is still charter-based.

The Russian market is behaving as did the UK market in the golden age of Harry Goodman's Intasun - stack them high and sell them cheap.

Other Eastern European markets like Poland are going the same way.

The million dollar question is whether the Russian market has been spooked by the financial crisis that has befallen the island and which has affected its many Russian residents.

What Cyprus has to do will not be easy.

The island has been set back 50 years and, while its weather and Mediterranean beaches remain perfect for sun-starved northern Europeans, the essential ingredients to achieve marked tourism growth are no longer there.

However, the Cypriots have done it before and I would not be surprised if they pulled the rabbit out of the bag yet again.

It’s a chance for a fresh start and, hopefully, more consideration of the long-term via sustainable tourism.

Cyprus is already working very closely with the CSTI (Cyprus Sustainable Tourism Initiative) and The Travel Foundation and the work done so far could be developed considerably to achieve the impressive savings and long-term benefits inherent in the adoption of sustainable policies.

What about a nice big EU grant to help Cyprus become a shining example of what can be achieved in terms of long-term sustainability? Now there’s an interesting thought.

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Support Cyprus

Tui pledges to support crisis-hit Cyprus

By Lee Hayhurst

Apr 29, 2013 08:19AM GMT


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Cyprus has won continued support from Europe’s largest tour operating group in the wake of its banking crisis.

Senior executives from Tui Travel met Cypriot president Nicos Anastasiades to pledge their backing for the island.

The prospects of recovery for Cypriot tourism and the broader economy, as well as the role tourism can play to spearhead the country’s effort to restart its economy were discussed at the meeting.

Tui Travel deputy chief executive Johan Lundgren said that “tourists need Cyprus and Cyprus needs tourism”.

“Our message is that Tui Travel will continue to support Cyprus in its reform process and we look forward to continuing our investments on the island,” he said.

“Our relationship with Cyprus, which we consider a very important destination, goes back almost 50 years.

“We will need the support and assistance of various stakeholders; the Government, the authorities for tourism and our partners here, to seize the opportunity that we believe exists and ensure we can continue our development plan in Cyprus, but also expand this activity within the European markets.”

The senior management team, with representatives from the group’s mainstream UK and Nordic businesses, were joined at a 200-strong dinner by Cyprus tourism minister George Lakkotrypis, as well as local and international media and wider tourism industry representatives.