Do tour companies like Thomson have a future?
Thomson posted a tacky video on their facebook page. Bad PR, as it brought out a string of complaints.
Post a complaint on the Thomson facebook page and you will receive a patronising response. Post again or support one of the clients complaining, you will be warned for repetitive posts, then blocked.
This means, the number of visible complaints at any one time are probably the tip of the iceberg.
Check out the hashtags
on twitter and you will find a string of complaints.
They follow a similar pattern, failure to pay compensation, bad holiday experience, lies to clients.
Check out the facebook page for Thomson Holidays Unsatisfied Customers, more very unhappy Thomson clients.
Thomson is in the running for the Daily Mail Wooden Spoon Awards 2016.
Check out the Thomson webpage for Be Live Tenerife, then check reality. A very serious mismatch.
Hotel Be Live Tenerife closed for two months, September to October 2016. It should not have reopened. The work was not finished. It was a building site.
Hotel Be Live Tenerife in Puerto de la Cruz in Tenerife would form a case study in how not to run a hotel. In a month has fallen from around No 32 on TripAdvisor to No 42, such are the level of bad reviews and bad management by the Be Live management.
Thomson sent their clients to a building site. Thomson are under a legal obligation to advised their clients of the situation. Thomson failed to do so.
When clients inquired of the situation, either having learnt the hotel was closed, or seen the bad reviews and photos on TripAdvisor, they simply lied.
They claimed they did not know, did not know what was going on, claimed the work was finished, claimed clients were confused and the work was at another hotel.
E-mails to David Burling, Thomson Holidays Managing Director and member of tui board, go unanswered.
david.burling@thomson.co.uk
With this level of contempt for clients at the top, no small wonder the company is so bad and is in the running for Daily Mail Wooden Spoon Awards 2016.
But bad as all this, it simply shows Thomson is a failing company. It is not why it has no future, although it hardly is likely to have or deserve a future.
To book a holiday through a tour company is an anachronism, it is as though we are stuck in the 1960s. It is as though the Internet does not exist, as though smart phones do not exist, we are not all interconnected.
What happens when we book a holiday through a tour company?
We flip through a brochure, see a couple of pictures, could be anywhere, they all look pretty much of a muchness, and we are relieved of a few thousand pounds.
The tour company, apart from take our money, has done nothing for us.
In the 1960s, we had no choice. That is not true today. Travel is now arranged through the internet.
Half of travel agents have vanished. More than half of bookings and travel done through the net.
It is so easy. So easy, it is perverse to do any other way.
Check out a hotel through TripAdvisor. But be wary of fake reviews.
Check out flights, again using TripAdvisor.
Hotel Be Live Tenerife. Departure long wait at Thomson check-in. On arrival, transfer by coach seems to take for ever as wait for incoming flights to fill up the coach, then further delay as drop people off. Return journey is as bad. Coach late, an hour to pick people up. Nearly three hours to airport. Long wait at Thomson check-in.
Contrast with direct booking. Airline website does not date from the digital stone age. Fast check in. Flight magazine that treats you as intelligent. Not treated as though in a market, being peddled rubbish. Hop on the local bus, which is roughly hourly. One hour twenty minutes to destination. A few minutes walk from the bus or get a taxi. Return journey just as easy. Bus 13 euros one way. Less with bono card.
To book the hotel, if do not wish to book direct, can use
Or can these days even book using TripAdvisor.
Then there is AirBnB, which poses major challenge to hotels.
Trips, if you have been foolish enough to book through Thomson, or maybe it was the only way possible, then at least do not waste money on the trips they try to sell you.
In Protaras in Cyprus, you will get a better deal from local travel agents.
In Puerto de la Cruz, there is an excellent local bus service. Cheaper still with a bono card.
AirBnB offer apartments. Their latest venture, is AirBnB trips.
