Case study: Thomson

Case study:
Thomson
The CTOUCH 84-inch
multi-touch display
is one of the core
ingredients of the
award-winning, nextgeneration Thomson
Holiday Design Stores
being rolled out
across the UK.
Thomson Holidays has risen to the challenge
of the digital retail age with an awardwinning, experiential concept store, packed
with digital technology, innovative store
design and visible customer service.
The Holiday Design Store turns the process
of finding and booking a holiday into an
immersive shopping experience for
would-be holiday makers and puts them
firmly in control.
The innovative concept puts technology at
the shoppers’ fingertips in an environment
that looks and feels wholly different to
Thomson’s usual stores, and made its debut
in October 2013 at the Bluewater Shopping
Centre in Kent.
A wide entrance with a videowall to replace
the traditional window display draws
shoppers into the new-style store, where
the walls are alive with video and other rich
media content.
Once inside the store, shoppers have a choice
of zones: the ‘pool’ styled browsing zone
complete with mosaic floor and lilo seating
where customers can browse with their own
tablets and phones; the advice ‘bar’ zone
where computers are set-up for customers to
use with staff on hand to assist if required,
or customers can seek a more personal
consultation in the individual booths.
Central to the Thomson Holiday Store
concept is the interactive map, an extra
large, vibrant display with multi-touch,
integrated into the wall of the store,
enabling customers to explore potential
holiday destinations anywhere in
the world.
Access all areas
The interactive map teams an 84-inch
interactive CTOUCH display with ten-point
touch technology with specially created
content to inspire customers and bring
potential holiday destinations to life.
Tapping a location on the world map takes
the customers to a wealth of rich media
content including videos of the location
and even enables them to preview
facilities of available hotels in the location
and even look inside the bedrooms they
might stay in.
The CTOUCH interactive displays were
installed by audio visual integrator SCC,
which was responsible for all the AV
elements of the Thomson Holiday Design
Store and supplied through Medium UK, the
exclusive distributor of CTOUCH in the UK
and Ireland.
CTOUCH was an ideal choice. It’s a
fantastic product with an outstanding
display quality and fast touch response…
Dominic Rozendaal, AV System Designer at SCC
AV System Designer at SCC, Dominic
Rozendaal explains: “We had the challenge
of making the design of the holiday
store a reality in terms of all the AV and
the interactive map was one of the key
ingredients.
“CTOUCH was an ideal choice. It’s a fantastic
product with an outstanding display quality
and fast touch response, but it also is
immensely robust, which is essential in
retail environment where customers will be
hands-on with the display.
The interactive map has proven very popular
with Thomson’s customers, who treat the
massive 84-inch display like a giant tablet.
Thomson staff have all been retrained to
ensure they are able to help any customers
that need it, search and sample holidays
using the touch display.
Tim Porter, Medium UK Product Manager for
CTOUCH, says: “It’s great to see the CTOUCH
interactive display being used in such
an innovative retail concept. There is no
gimmicky use of technology here. Thomson
has used digital technology to bring the
process of shopping for a holiday into the
21st century and turn it into a fun and
immersive experience you simply couldn’t
get with online alone.”
Blending in-store and online
Kathryn Ward, Director of Retail and Financial
Services for Thomson UK & Ireland, says it
is clear to retailers that the high street is
changing. “SCC has helped us realise digital
solutions which engage a generation of
shoppers who demand experiences that blur
online and in-store shopping.
“We’re combining the knowledge and
expertise of our people with a range of
technology that will really bring choosing
and booking a holiday to life like never
before so our customers feel inspired
and excited from the moment they step
into store.”
The innovative in-store technology has
also been introduced to the first holiday
design Superstore at Monks Cross, York
and a substantial number of UK stores are
also expected to have specific elements
especially the popular interactive map
installed during minor refits.
Thomson says it has received some great
feedback from its customers but has also
won recognition from the retail industry,
fending off some of the High Street’s most
familiar retail names to scoop ‘Digital Store
of the Year’ at the prestigious BT Retail
Week Technology Awards, 2014.
SCC’s Dominic Rozendaal adds: “We’ve used
the CTOUCH 84-inch for every one of the
interactive maps.
This is much more than an award-winning
concept store, however, it is a blueprint for
Thomson’s retail network.
Two further holiday design stores have since
opened in Liverpool and Bristol. A fourth is
planned to open in Gateshead with another
20 in the pipeline as further new stores are
expected to be added as store leases come
up for renewal.
www.ctouch.co.uk
“The integrated touch technology also has
proved advantageous and more reliable
than a display with the addition of a thirdparty touch overlay. The build quality is
excellent and so is the reliability, and we
have not had a single fault on any of the
displays now in use nationwide.”
Rozendaal also paid tribute to CTOUCH
distributor Medium UK: “The Medium team
have been incredibly helpful. They’ve been
truly proactive, provided great support and
have gone the extra mile for us to ensure we
can deliver and the stores open on time. They,
and CTOUCH, are very customer focused and
are more of a trusted partner than a supplier.”