Skift Take
— Jesse Chase-Lubitz
TUI Group’s tours unit struck a deal to become Lastminute.com Group’s preferred travel experiences provider, expanding its distribution in the fast-growing travel activities market.
TUI Musement will supply tours and activities for resale by the online travel group in over 100 countries, the companies said Tuesday.
“The partnership with lastminute.com enables TUI Musement to connect more travelers with our experiences partners in-destination, and also grow demand for our own unique experiences, which in turn enables us to invest in developing new experiences,” said Nishank Gopalkrishnan, TUI Musement’s chief commercial officer, in a Skift interview.
Adding Experiences to Packages
For TUI, this agreement will expand its in-destination customer base and build demand for the tours it sells as a merchant and the experience products it produces on its own.
For lastminute.com, TUI Musement’s inventory will allow the online travel agency to add tours and activities in over 100 countries to its dynamically generated package holidays — which primarily include air and lodging.
Lastminute.com has found particular success selling after customers have booked a package. As a customer approaches departure, the company can showcase all the add-on experiences.
“Having firmly established the business as a package holiday specialist over the last few years, it made sense to revamp our ancillary offering,” said Carlo Banfi, lastminute.com’s director of experiences, in an email to Skift.
The new platform will integrate with lastminute.com’s existing online channels, including its website and customer relationship management system. The two companies will also explore telesales and direct sales in destinations.
Over the summer, Lastminute.com Group will also make TUI Musement inventory available through its other brands — Bravofly, Rumbo, Volagratis, and Weg.de.
“As an international company with different brands, we have come to understand over the years that our customers don’t all want the same thing,” said Banfi. “This is why, with the help of TUI Musement, we have created a dedicated offer based on each of the lastminute group brands and taken a more country-by-country approach.”
TUI Group said it has not yet developed experiences exclusive to lastminute.com but could in the future.
TUI Musement’s B2B Strategy
“B2B partnerships represent almost 50% of TUI Musement’s revenue and are a key part of TUI’s growth strategy for tours and activities,” Gopalkrishnan said. “[They provide] our in-destination experiences partners with an opportunity to reach a larger and more diverse audience, and at the same time [grow] demand for our unique experiences.”
“We will go further and explore how we can leverage TUI’s omnichannel distribution,” said Gopalkrishnan. “We will reach customers through the online platform but also have the opportunity to sell directly to lastminute.com customers through utilizing TUI’s presence in travel destinations around the world.”
The global business-to-business (B2B) sector in travel experiences is growing quickly, according to a Skift Research report from last year.