Case study on Co-operative Travel

The Co-operative Travel Group - Ultimedia
Leanne Woolvine (Co-op Travel Ecommerce)
Glenn Stewart (Ultimedia CTO)
… delivering excellence, establishing the standard’
Who is Co-operative Travel
The Co-operative Travel is part of the Europe’s largest consumer co-operative,
with a turnover in excess of £13.5 billion.
We operate over 400 high street travel agencies, a business travel operation, call
centres, a specialist cruise operation and in excess of 600 travel home workers.
Our business has grown considerably
over recent years to become a
diverse multi-channel operation and
we now take care of the travel
arrangements for over two million
passengers every year.
‘Best of Breed’
 National Travel Retailer of
the year 2011, 2010, 2009
 UK domestic Operator of the
year 2010
 Best Tour operator to Europe
2010 ...
 Agent Achievement Awards
Best website 2011
Original Challenge

In 2008, the Co-op Group Travel 1 Limited Group decided to consolidate two
of its websites (www.cooptravelshop.co.uk and www.travelcare.co.uk) into a
single master site, www.co-operativetravel.co.uk, to become the UK’s largest
independent travel agent.

In an incredibly competitive industry, it was vital that the new site was
engaging and dynamic to have the best chance of success
Working together
Co-operative Travel and Ultimedia found EPiServer to be
the best CMS fit
Range of advanced features
Easy integration with other products (Traveltek, Tripadvisor,
Google etc)
Highly adaptable and updatable
Mixture of auto and manual updating of offers
Everweb hosting
Localisation / Personalisation
Personalisation used on home page to suggest ...
Local airports to use based on IP address
Time and day of visit
Geographic proximities
Destinations based on local airport
Dynamic content based on Visitor groups
Flexible page elements brought in at edit time
Social Commerce
Family holidays very popular and
social media drive volume …
‘Send to a Friend’
‘Like’ and ‘Facebook like’
Banners/Carousels/Hero banners
Content/XForms/Viewers
Top 10 / Special Offers / Affiliates
Interfaces
Google Widgets
News & RSS feeds
Tag Clouds & Related Links
Continued Growth
 Website, re-launched in 2009 as www.co-operativetravel.co.uk, experienced massive
growth, achieving a sales increase of more than 300 per cent on 2008.
 Online presence has continued its success with an increase in bookings, visitors and
time spent on the site during 2010.
 2010 figures have already surpassed this, with sales projected to increase by 38 per
cent by the end of the year. Visits to the site are up by 22 per cent, and time spent on the
site up by almost 30 per cent (Jan – Aug 2010).
 Searches for all-inclusive holidays have risen by 106 per cent year on year, whilst
searches for city breaks to New York were up an astonishing 203 per cent.
“At a time when a lot of the travel industry has seen a decline in sales, it is great for this
business to see a continuing rise in holiday bookings.”
“This is very much a team effort: we are constantly looking at ways to improve the web
proposition, and remain confident that sales will carry on increasing in the years ahead.”
Future
“We’re not standing still and there are always improvements and
upgrades we can make to the site.
We’re working closely with EPiServer and Ultimedia to ensure we are
always at the cutting edge and providing the best possible experience
for all our customers.”
“One or two things out there we want to take full advantage of”
Top 10 Factors in Destination Choice
(Provisional 2011 data - 15,000+ international tourists from 30+ markets and
visiting a destination for the first time):
1. Friends or relatives recommendation: 38%
2. World renowned must-see destination: 32%
3. Information on the web: 22%
4. Cheap deal / special offer: 15%
5. Geographically close destination: 14%
6. Travel agency recommendation: 8%
7. Article in a magazine / newspaper: 6%
8. Movie realized in the country: 5%
9. Appealing advertising on it: 5%
10. Heard about in the TV news: 2%
Source: New Media Trend Watch
Future ...tied into EPiServer
Mobile
Smartphone bookings rising ~70% per year
Handset technology ever increasing
Multichannel
Need to drive business across channels
F-Commerce and social commerce
A shopping mall with lots of customers
Social recommendation driven
Personalisation and visitor groups
SEO enhancements