Customer relationship

management
MGT-631

Assignment
On
Comparative
Analysis of two companies
(C & K vs. TCIL)

Submitted by: -
Submitted to:-
Sukhvinder Singh Mr. Rohan Sharma
Roll no: - RV8901A07 lecturer of L.S.H

SESSION (2009-11)
INTRODUCTION
 (C & K)
Cox & Kings is the longest established travel company in the world. Its
distinguished history began in 1758 when it was appointed as general agents to the
regiment of Foot Guards in India under the command of Lord Ligonier.Cox &
Kings now thrives as an independent tour company with offices in the United
Kingdom, India, the United States and Japan. Its global headquarters are in
London.

Headquartered in India, it is a premium brand that caters to the overall travel needs
of the Indian and International traveller. Cox & Kings operates in 20 countries
through branch offices, subsidiaries, representative offices, franchised sales shops
as well as through our global network of sales agents. The company has 14 branch
sales offices in India located in Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore,
Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Kochi, Pune, Nagpur and Goa. The company has
appointed 94 franchisees across 20 states covering 70 cities. The company’s
extensive network of 185 GSAs and PSAs covering all major towns and cities of
India enhances its reach. Cox & Kings has subsidiaries in UK, Japan, Australia,
New Zealand, UAE, USA, Singapore, Hong Kong, Greece & Germany; branch
offices in New York, Moscow, Maldives & Tahiti; & representative offices in
Spain, Germany, Italy, France, South America, Sweden and South Africa. The
company owns Tempo Holidays Australia, East India Travel Company in North
America, ETN in the UK and Quoprro Global Services Pvt Ltd,(visa processing).
In December 2009 it also acquired MyPlanet Australia Pty Ltd and Bentours
International Pty Ltd in Australia. Cox & Kings is amongst the largest players with
its range of specialist options. Innovative packaging, pricing and marketing have
been the hallmarks of its success over the years. Among its many products are
Leisure Travel- Domestic (Bharat Deko), Inbound & International, Corporate
Travel, MICE, Trade Fairs, Visa Processing and Foreign Exchange. The Outbound
Tours is segregated into Duniya Dekho (escorted tours), FlexiHols (customised
tours), Luxury Escapades (unique & luxurious travel) & NRI (catering to Indians
across the world). Over the last two years the company has won many awards. In
January 2010 it was awarded the Most Admired Tour Operator by SATTE. Cox &
Kings has also been awarded First Runner up in the Best Large Tour Operator
category awarded by the Telegraph Ultra Travel luxury survey UK 2010 and First
Runner Up in the Favourite Tour Operator category awarded by Condé Nast
Traveller Readers’ Choice Awards (2010). In 2009, it won the Best Domestic Tour
Operator, Most Innovative Travel Company and the Best Inbound Tour Operator
award at the TAFI TravelBiz Monitor Awards. It won the Today’s Traveller
Platinum Award for the most innovative travel company and it also won the
Economic Times Award for the Best Outbound Tour Operator in India. In 2008,
Mr. Ajay Ajit Peter Kerkar, Global CEO, Cox & Kings was honoured with the
WTM Global Award 2008 for his remarkable contribution to the travel and tourism
industry by the World Travel Market (WTM). CKL is one of the founding
members of the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), and are members of
premier industry associations namely the Travel Agents Federation of India
(TAFI), the Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI), Indian Association of
Tour Operators (IATO), and the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA). ***

The principal services offered by the company are:

• Destination Management
• Outbound Tourism
• Business Travel
• Incentive & Conference Solutions
• Domestic Holidays
• NRI
• Trade Fairs
• Foreign Exchange
• Insurance

Benefits of choosing Cox & Kings

• Expertise
 Their regional specialists have all travelled extensively in their regions meaning
you can be reassured that your hotels, excursions and journeys have been fully
considered by an expert.

• Values

Their buying power and long-standing relationships in the travel industry

generated over many years by the network of associated Cox & Kings
companies worldwide enables them to contract flights, hotels and ground
services at highly competitive rates.

• Heritage

As the oldest travel company in the world, (established 1758) they have the
experience to make travel arrangements of the highest calibre.

• Additional Services

Complimentary travel accessories, free subscription to their in-house magazine

Compass and access to sponsored events such as the recent Royal Academy of
Arts Van Gogh Exhibition.

• Choice

As well as offering a huge variety of destinations, holidays range from their

excellent-value small escorted group tours to completely flexible tailor-made
holidays, luxurious city breaks and art history tours.
• Protection

C&K has full industry bonding, including ATOL , ABTA and AITO protection,
meaning your money is safe with them.

C&K has a history of over 250 years, making it one of the oldest travel brands in
the world. Over the years, the company has built a strong brand franchise for itself
in overseas markets as well as in India. The travel market is highly fragmented,
with a large number of travel agents catering to most of the demand. We believe
that C&K's strong brand, coupled with services across the value-chain (inbound
and outbound), would act as a key driver in garnering a higher market share in the
future.

a. Strong Brand Equity Cox & Kings was ranked #1 among the Top Brands in
India, and ranked 152 amongst the Top 1000 Brands in the Asia-Pacific
region. The tour-operator industry is dependent on brand awareness and
recall in the long-run, as customers need to believe in the capabilities of the
operator to provide quality services and that their products will lead to a
satisfied experience, even before they have approached the service provider.

b. Presence across the value-chain: C&K offers complete travel solutions, and
serve as an integrated provider of all travel and travel-related products. The
company provides a 'One-Stop Shop' for all travel requirements, from visa
formalities to ticketing, holidays, insurance and foreign exchange. Besides,
the company is in the process of rolling-out a pan-India, luxury train, under
the brand 'Maharajas' Express', through a joint venture with the Indian
Railways.

Wide geographical reach: In India, C&K has 255 points of presence, covering
164 locations, through a mix of branch sales offices, franchised sales shops,
General Sales Agents (GSAs) and Preferred Sales Agents (PSAs). The company
has 14 branch sales offices located in Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata,
Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Kochi, Pune, Nagpur and Goa.
Besides, it also operates through 56 franchised sales shops spread across India.
Moreover, the company has a global presence, with operations in 19 countries
(besides India)
through subsidiaries, branch offices and representative offices (in the UK,
Australia, New Zealand, Japan, US, UAE, Singapore and Hong Kong).

C&K's focus on emerging markets to help garner higher growth:

C&K derives over half of its earnings from the emerging markets (mainly India)
and is focused on increasing its presence in other high growth geographies (mainly
the Middle-East and South-East Asia).
This, we believe, would bode well for the company, as it is ideally poised to
benefit from a strong growth in demand for outbound and inbound services in these
areas, enabling it to achieve a high growth rate in the future.

Different from competitors: C&K offers customized business travel solutions for
corporate clients with an endeavour to optimize their travel budget. They
continuously innovate the product offerings with the flexibility to meet the
changing needs of customers and to address their needs better. This also helps
them differentiate their products vis–a–vis the products offered by their
competitors.

Indian Operations
The New Segments and Product Offerings

Times have changed drastically ever since India got liberalized and corporatized.
This has affected travelling patterns of consumers. Cox and Kings has accordingly
introduced following packages.

Group Tours
They operate Group Tours in all divisions i.e. Outbound, Inbound and Domestic.
Each tour is different in the number of days and destinations. All the tours are pre-
planned i.e. the dates of departures and arrivals are fixed in advance for all the
tours.

Outbound Group Tours are offered and sold under the brand name “Duniya
Dekho”.
Likewise, Domestic Group Tours are sold under our branded product “Bharat
Deko”.

Flexible Individual Travellers (“FIT”)

Under FITs they provide customized holidays which have flexibility and are
designed to suit the customer needs unlike group tours which are standard in
nature.
Two of the products i.e. “Bharat Dekho” and “FlexiHol” cater to domestic and
international FITs respectively with customized plans for holidays.

Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (“MICE”)

Leisure travel is increasingly being used as an incentive tool by many
organizations to convey appreciation for recognizing achievers. It has dual
benefits, one by providing a holiday that enables an executive to unwind and
recharge and the other serving as a reward for excellence that inspires the team.

C&K caters to all aspects of conference organizing, business meetings, event

management, seminars, exhibitions, product launches and incentives. Every event
is designed to meet specific requirements right from the pre-event preparations,
during the event itself and through to post-event settlements.
Non-Resident Indians (“NRI”)
To cater to up market NRIs , they have specially designed products for them,
wherein they provide them with an upgraded service to suit their mindset. They
sell both of our travel products ‘Duniya Dekho’ and ‘Bharat Deko’ to NRI clients
and the major outbound destinations we offer them include Europe, USA, Australia
& New Zealand, Far East, etc. They have setup an office in New York to specially
cater to this market segment which is a rapidly growing area of business.

Trade Fairs
They also organize group tours for Trade Fairs in countries outside India. Trade
Fairs for different industries are organized all round the year at different places and
they take participants in such trade fairs with a customised itinerary for their entire
schedule. For the Trade Fairs organised by them, they arrange for every need
including accommodation, city tours to technical add-ons such as factory visits,
buyer-seller meets and an array of value-added services handling the most complex
and exacting business trips anywhere in the world.

Corporate / Business Travel

The Corporate or Business Travel has witnessed a change from the traditional
travel agency mode to total travel management mode. In this mode the objective is
to minimize the total travel budget for the corporate while maintaining the service
standards. The need has arisen from the increasing complexities, quality and time
effectiveness of business travels of current times.

Their brand recall is very high amongst over 200 corporate clients, including major
domestic and multinational companies like DHL Express and DHL Lemuir
Logistics, Parker Hannifin, Warner Bros., Lanxess India, Alok Industries, Edwards
Lifesciences, Villeroy & Bosch Sales India, Scope International, etc.

One of the world's largest conglomerates in business travel – Radius Inc., the first
truly global travel management partnership/consortium with merger of Travel
Trust International and Woodside Travel Management Corporation, selected C& K
as their Indian partner. They are now shareholder member of Radius Inc – the
global travel company which is well-positioned to service multinational corporate
clients on a global basis.
Cox & Kings over the years
The brand has grown up by and large over the years, be it the different packages or
the targeted customers. The brand personality of Cox & Kings has acquired the
following attributes in recent past due to the deals offered to the customers:
• Innovative
• Trust Worthy
• Premium service
• Safe to invest
• Diversified and customized
• Most Experienced (Oldest in the business)
As compared to others, the deals offered are innovative. For example, the “one
stop shop” which offers a single stop for all travel requirements is a service which
no one had ever come up with by that point of time. Through its customized and
faultless service the brand has developed a trust amongst its targeted set of
customers. Also, varied packages have yet not succeeded in diluting the quality of
service. As a result of which the brand still has a premium quality service offering,
though a inquisitive approach sufficiently before the actual travel might lead the
customer to achieve something more than the worth of value. The trust and
comfort offered is leveraged by the brand in forming a perception of a service
product which is safe to invest into. The value proposition is well segmented with
“celebrating 250 years”, which drives the point of being the most experienced
player in the domain of travel and tourism.
A More Subtle Segmentation
Cox and Kings has come to realise that though the mass market consists of mainly
the holiday tourists but there are other critical base of customers which needs to be
segmented.

In comparison to the earlier times when travel pattern used to be non-frequent, now
we can see that pattern changing with the frequent fliers coming into the picture.
Also, the pattern for others have also taken a big change and need to be catered to
in order to succeed in the domain.

The focus has shifted from acquiring customers to maintaining the customer base
with a keen eye on the potential customer base, resulting into the major re-
structuring of the whole business structure with respect to the target customer base
categorically and also the target market segmentation in India. The following facts
have also affected the brand to reflect and scrutinize their strategies in the Indian
market:

• Indian tourism industry is to generate $ 128 Billion by 2016.

• In 2006, India had 0.52 % world market share in International tourist
arrivals.

Both these facts indicate the tender age of the Indian tourism industry and a
symptom of a promising growth in its revenue generation capacity. This has
affected the strategies of the Cox & Kings in India as a travel operator which is
evident in the segmentation of the market on the basis of various touring habits.
In comparison to the initial phase when there were hardly two to three brands in
competition, there has been a mushroom growth in the domain. Initially, SOTC
and Thomas cook were the major competitors but this span of time has seen a
mushroom growth in the area with more players like makemytrip, Yatra and other
local travel organizers have come into the picture. Also, over time the customer has
become aware and the advent of internet has made the domain further more
competitive.
After the liberalisation, the tourism industry is on a boom. Even in the recession hit
last two years, the tourism industry was able to make profit although it witnessed a
comparative decrease in profits. The disturbing economic waves hit the tourism
industry quite badly as the money spending capacity of a person decreases. The
lower industry profit in turn affect the company’s bottom line.

Product offerings under the respective segments

Company Profile
* Name:
Thomas cook

* Logo:

* Office: Thomas cook

(I) Ltd.
5 Alfa Estate
L.G.F,35
Jalan
dhar

* Motto: Best Holidays.

Honest Prices.

* Website:
WWW.thomascook.in

* Toll Free: - 1-800-

2099-100
* SMS: - ‘holidays’ to
56767100
Thomas Cook awarded:
“Best Tour Operator 2008” by CNBC Awaaz and
“Best Travel Agency- India, 2008” by TTG Asia.
INTRODUCTION

There is only one company that tourists and vacationers associate

with the vision “The Whole World of Travel” – Thomas Cook.

Thomas Cook – an English publicist whose name the company now uses –
organized his first tour by rail; the company has grown to become synonymous
with the package tour and mass tourism industry
Today, with €7.7 billion in sales and 23,300 employees, the company belongs to
the world’s top three travel services companies and is Europe’s number two travel
provider. Services offered include travel shops, tour operators, and charter airlines.
To complement the company’s brand strength, Thomas Cook also owns a whole
host of other renowned tour operator brands and airlines, including Thomas Cook
Reisen, Neckermann, JMC, Condor, and Thomas Cook Airlines.
One of the cornerstones of the continued success of Thomas Cook’s strategy is the
application of direct marketing techniques to apply the above vision to as many
customers as possible. Approaching customers directly on the basis of previous
bookings and reservations enables Thomas Cook to create extremely targeted
marketing campaigns that achieve high conversion rates. For Thomas Cook, direct
marketing is also the best way to retain and grow prized customers.

Thomas Cook (22 November 1808 – 18 July 1892) of Melbourne, Derbyshire,

founded the travel agency that is now Thomas Cook Group. He was brought up as
a strict Baptist and joined his local Temperance Society. He worked as a cabinet
maker and part-time publisher of Baptist and Temperance pamphlets, becoming a
Baptist minister in 1828. John Mason Cook, his only son, was born in 1834.

Thomas cook (I) Ltd.

ABOUT TCI - Trust, Commitment, Innovation
• For more than 47 years, TCI has been a widely recognized and respected
brand in travel and tourism. It is India's premier travel organization offering
extensive national and international services under one roof.
• TCI has been in the business of Destination Management since 1966. With
four decades of M.IC.E experience, covering all aspects, it has enriched TCI
with a valuable experience to contribute successfully to major International
Conferences.
• We guarantee a high quality, cost effective approach to produce
professionally managed Events. TCI’s M.I.C.E division enables the
conference organizers to deliver the industry’s leading technical program.
• With team strength of around 800 professionals, TCI is by far the most
important Destination Management Company in India.
It is also a member of AFTA, ASTA, IATA, IATO, ICCA, JATA, PATA,
TAAI, UFTAA and USTOA.
AWARD:
• Recipient of the National Tourism Award every year since 1976 in the category
I. Including Best MICE Company.
• Recipient of “Outstanding Sales Performance Awards” from different
Airlines.

• Recipient of the Shyam Poddar Trophies for “Pioneering New Areas in

Tourism”.

• Recipient of Hospitality India Annual International Awards 2007 for

Outstanding Performance in Inbound Tourism.
• Winner of a silver Lion at Cannes 2007 for Print Advertisement. The ad
showcased Honeymoon holidays in India with TCI.
Advantage TCI:
• Partnering with the Numero Uno DMC of India

• 4 decades of industry experience

• Expertise in travel budget management

• Extensive network at your service

• Purchasing power due to size of operation

• Information & services to improve your productivity

• Innovative cost effective solutions

• Quality Assurance Cell maintaining strict quality standards (tour feedback

tracking mechanism)

• Civil liability insurance of USD 1.25 million.

• Relationship with the tourism bodies & 24 X 7 client support office.

 THOMAS COOK SERVICES
• Thomas Cook operates as a leisure travel company. The company’s services
include airlines, accommodation, tour operation, and distribution and service
agencies. As of October 31, 2005, its distribution network comprised 161
franchise outlets and 266 group-owned travel agencies.
• Thomas Cook offers bookings of flights, hotels, car hires, cruises as well as
travel money. One can also choose from holidays that are all inclusive or
simply choose to avail of a few services from Thomas Cook. The company
offers a wide range of holidays, right from holidays that let you soak up the
sun, enjoy sunsets, sand and sea, to revelling in the icy-cold snow. The range
of holidays includes Sun Holidays, Faraway Holidays, Clubbing Holidays,
and Snow holidays, Active Holidays, Style Villas and Disney Villas.
• Thomas Cook UK is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Thomas Cook
Worldwide, a company that has 5 wholly-owned subsidiaries. In the U.K.,
 Thomas Cook is a vertically-integrated travel company that operates an
airline, a retail arm and a holiday division.
• Those keen on the exotica, like the Caribbean with its quaint beaches, or the
splendour of Indian or the wilderness of Mexico, can opt for the Faraway
holidays. One can also consider the Thomas Cook Signature holidays for the
Caribbean, as per one’s budget. For those with different tastes, there are club
holidays offering deals on party hotspots like Zante, Ibiza and Tenerife.
• Adventure lovers can choose from a wide range of Ski and snowboarding
holidays. Even for beginners, there are many options. For those interested in
getting involved in some activity or the other, there are professional tuitions
in Dinghy Sailing, Windsurfing, Mountain Biking, Scuba Diving and
Yachting.
• A package holiday or package tour consists of transport and accommodation
advertised and sold together by a vendor known as a tour operator. Other
services may be provided like a rental car, activities or outings during the
holiday. Transport can be via charter airline to a foreign country. Package
holidays are a form of product bundling.

• Thomas Cook (India) Limited will be the first private player to offer Indian
rail ticketing on its website (WWW.thomascook.in). Up to now, the Indian
Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC), a public sector
enterprise under the ministry of railways, has been offering rail tickets
online
• “The customers will not only be able to search trains on our website but
also will be able to book tickets,” said Amitabh Pandey, president and head,
e-business, Thomas Cook (India) Ltd, adding that there is no revenue
sharing with IRCTC and that the portal will be charging service fee to the
customers approved by the railways. “It will be Rs 10 on sleeper class ticket
and Rs 20 on upper class ticket,” he said. “Our system has been integrated
with the IRCTC system. However, the payment gateway is ours,” he said.
The customers will be able to book tickets on Thomas Cook website using
credit card and debit card. “We will not have cash on delivery as IRCTC
has, as we will deal only in e-tickets and not paper tickets,” he added.
Currently, few portals including Travelguru and Ezeego1.com provide rail
 packages on their website which is powered by IRCTC. “We have Indian
rail packages powered by IRCTC on our website.
The different services which offered by Thomas cook are given below:
• 1. Flights.
• 2. Holidays.
• a) Domestic.
• b) International.
• 3. Hotels.
• 4. Rail.
• a) Indian rail.
• b) Rail of Europe.
• 5. Insurance.
Thomas cook having its own website (WWW.thomascook.in) through which
you can avail these all services only with one click.

CRM in Tourism and Special Issues

The situation in 2002 after 9/11 was not good for the tourisms’ industry, As a reaction the
companies increased prices and opened new fields of activity, e.g. no-frills airlines, moreover
CRM became a central relevance in the tourism branch.

New guests are not coming automatically, instead of that they have to be won with
comparatively great investments, An important driver for tourism in general is the internet, major
factor for example the anytime access, updatability and search

CRM for Travel Industry:-

• In the competitive travel industry, customer satisfaction no longer guarantees customer

loyalty.
• In response to this new environment, travel providers are undertaking initiatives centered
on identifying, developing and retaining high-value customers, under the overall banner
of customer relationship management or CRM.

CRM focuses on three imperatives of customer relationships:

Customer acquisition
Customer acquisition management is a term used to describe the methodologies and systems to
manage customer prospects and inquiries, generally generated by a variety of marketing
techniques. It can be considered the connectivity between advertising and customer relationship
management. This critical connectivity facilitates the acquisition of targeted customers in an
effective fashion.
Customer acquisition management has many similarities to lead management. Sometimes
missing from lead management definitions, but always included in customer acquisition
management, is a closed-loop reporting system. Such a reporting system typically allows the
organization to quantify the effectiveness of results of various promotional activities. This allows
organizations to realize continuous improvements in both promotional activities and customer
acquisition systems.
Customer acquisition management also often includes the original response to a prospect
immediately after their inquiry. This response could come in many forms – a personalized
fulfillment letter and brochure, an e-mail response or a telephone call. In each case the initial
response is targeted to further the interest of the prospect and simplify the initial sales call for the
sales channel.
Like lead management, customer acquisition management creates an orderly architecture for
managing large volumes of customer inquiries, or leads. The architecture must be able to
organize numerous leads, at various stages of a sales process, across a distributed sales force. In
order to understand this process, it is helpful to examine a simplified linear lead flow process,
such as the following:
• Advertising and CRM
• Customer inquiry or response
• Inquiry captured
• Inquiry filtered
• Lead graded and prioritized
• Lead distribution
• Sales contact
• Lead nurturing or retention
• Sales result
• Analysis of promotion's effectiveness

Customer development

Customer Development is a four-step framework developed by serial entrepreneur and

business school Professor Steve Blank for discovering and validating the right market for your
idea, building the right product features that solve customers’ needs, testing the correct model
and tactics for acquiring and converting customers, and deploying the right organization and
resources to scale the business. At a high level, Customer Development is about questioning
your core business assumptions. In other words, Customer Development teaches that rather
than assume your beliefs about your business to be true, you should apply an engineering, or
scientific method, to what is really not a scientific endeavor (building a business), in order to
validate the ideas.

Customer retention

Customer Retention is the activity that a selling organisation undertakes in order to reduce
customer defections. Successful customer retention starts with the first contact an organisation
has with a customer and continues throughout the entire lifetime of a relationship. A company’s
ability to attract and retain new customers, is not only related to its product or services, but
strongly related to the way it services its existing customers and the reputation it creates within
and across the marketplace.
Customer retention is more than giving the customer what they expect, it’s about exceeding their
expectations so that they become loyal advocates for your brand. Creating customer loyalty puts
‘customer value rather than maximizing profits and shareholder value at the center of business
strategy. The key differentiator in a competitive environment is more often than not the delivery
of a consistently high standard of customer service.
Thomas Cook – Travel Company- CRM
 Necessity of a good customer relationship management,
 In order to achieve more customer satisfaction, the Thomas Cook group tried and has
always been trying to improve their customer treatment in many different fields,
 Thomas Cook group consists of many smaller companies like “Condor Airlines” or
“Neckermann”, a lack of appropriate CRM was unavoidable as long as there is no central
place to go for customer data and customer complaints.
In 2004 and 2005 respectively, the quality management and the campaign management were
launched as separate sections of the company.
 With the help of the CRM tool “Personal Travel Page” by Traveltainment, Thomas Cook
provides potential customers with individualized information and personalized offerings.
 In addition, the website features corresponding pictures or videos of hotels and the
destination’s surroundings as well as information about local car rental services and
travel packages. The chosen tour can be ordered online or via phone call.

• Identifying the customers desires

• Expectation Surveys
• Introduce Offer in specific to particular customers
• Motivate by differentiating and providing value added benefits
• Heard about , Read about , or had someone recommend
Brothers Path for Thomas Cook
• Interaction Management
• Loyalty Program Management
• Campaign Management
• Feature & Function Promotion
INTERACTION
 Website Management
The website can be an important vehicle for communicating information such as:
✔ Customerization
✔ Online booking
 ✔ Cruises
✔ Offers
✔ Thomas Cook has launched a customer ratings and reviews service on its own
websitewww.thomascook.com to provide a trusted resource for customers researching
and booking holidays.
 Focus on distribution network
Loyalty Program Management

○
✔ Thomas Cook offers credit card in association with ICICI Bank Limited
✔ Thomas cook membership club.
Campaign Management
✔ Cruise Thomas cook launches 2010 campaign with cruise week special
✔ Thomas cook (26 December) rolled out its new TV ad featuring ex-England footballer
Jamie Redknapp and former pop star wife Louise Redknapp
✔ Thomas Cook launches digital campaign across Microsoft platforms
✔ Thomas Cook Works With Edelman Public Affairs To Campaign For A New Bank
Holiday.
Feature & Function Promotion
✔ Fly Thomas Cook Discount codes
✔ Vouchers
✔ Corporate tours
✔ Lola promotional staffing team hits the streets recently to promote the new Thomas cook
holiday scratch card
✔ Microsoft has launched an online competition to support its search engine Bing
Cox & King – Travel Company- CRM
Brand Equity & Expertise:
When people are looking for travel related solutions; one of the first names that comes to mind is
Cox & Kings. As our franchisee, you become an integral part of Cox & King's 248 year
heritage and are in a position to command the same kind of respect in the industry.

Training:

To ensure flawless management and strong before and after sales service, your team will be put
through comprehensive training provided by Cox & Kings. The training program will be
constantly updated and will provide you with ongoing guidance and assistance at every stage of
your progress. There will also be an online training program in place soon.

Technology and Total Support:

One of the many things Cox & Kings guarantees its franchisees are unmatched technology and
technical support. We, at Cox & Kings have developed comprehensive technology solutions,
covering everything from an easy access virtual office system to automation support with in-
house helpdesk and disaster recovery systems. You can access your office anywhere anytime.
Imagine if your child is ill and you need to stay at home or your client calls you late at night after
office hours. Well, you have the Cox & Kings advantage at your fingertips with our superb
online access system. You'll also be provided with a quick and easy to use online database,
which can be accessed 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Also, in case of any unfortunate instance, where you might end up losing valuable data/
transaction details, now your business can be back on its feet within a matter of minutes. All
thanks to our disaster recovery system.

Easy-to-use One Window bookings

Imagine when you book a ticket you first go on to a Central Reservation System (CRS). Next,
you have to log into another system for a hotel from 'X' supplier, then into another system to
compare the rates with 'Y' supplier. Finally you have to physically capture all this information
and print an excel sheet.

Not anymore with the Cox & Kings advantage, life is a lot simpler. Now with our online access
system, you can complete all your processes using just one window - just one simple booking
system. Cox & Kings will also ensure that the most comprehensive IT Software is put into place
so you have everything you need to manage and run your franchise.

24 hour call centre:

There's also a 24 x 7 call centre to back you up in case of an emergency or urgent queries. You
will receive all the advice, expertise and tools to help you succeed. And that too from a dedicated
franchisee support team that is committed to help your franchise increase sales and profitability.
Customer Relationship Management:
You require an invaluable business tool for winning and servicing your customer. Cox & Kings
will provide it to you in the form of a sophisticated Customer Relationship Management system.
○ The CRM is a user-friendly database system that is designed to analyse your
customer's needs and wants.
○ The system extracts customer data from your booking system and maintains a
complete detailed history of all your customers.
○ It allows you to identify and match opportunities to customers most likely to
respond to targeted offers.
○ The CRM marketing program includes all our own nationally co-ordinated direct
offer mails plus a personalised cover letter written as if it comes from you and
displays your shop's contact details.
○ The CRM program is also an invaluable business tool for winning and servicing
your business. It even produces reports which aid you in identifying areas of
opportunity and increasing your revenue and profi tability.

Enjoy Cox & Kings Purchasing Power:

As one of the most established travel company, we have the leverage to negotiate commissions
and overrides on airfares, cruises, coach tours, holiday packages as well as hotel accommodation
and car rentals. Which means, with us you have access to preferential deals and a strong
competitive advantage to offer them to your customers.

Marketing Strategy

Online and Offline Medium will be used for the marketing of Cox & Kings Products and to
create the brand awareness and reach out to the clients. National Level as well as Regional
Marketing Campaigns will be adopted for creating the Cox & Kings brand awareness.

Extensive Ground Operator Network:

Since Cox & Kings also has a strong network of dedicated ground operators functioning in
different countries, you'll be able to offer your customers a range of options to maximize their
holiday experience as per their budget and convenience. Also, you can be sure about the fact that
all your customers will always be in the expert hands of the network and will enjoy a smooth and
memorable holiday.

The following products (Domestic & International) will be offered:

• Flights
• Hotels
• Cars
• Sight-Seeing
• Rail
• Cruises
• Holidays
• Travel Insurance
• Forex (at certain locations)
• Visa & Documentation Services
• Destination Information and Content Management

Acquisition method of Thomas cook:-

Thomas Cook has vowed to run it as a standalone operation under current management.
Elegant, which a year ago abandoned plans for an AIM listing, carries about 20,000 passengers a
year and has an estimated turnover of more than £60 million. It sells holidays to exotic locations
such as the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and Arabian Gulf and is advertising space flights in
conjunction with Virgin Galactic. The average spend per booking is £10,000.

The company is understood to cater for several top footballers and is reputed to have organized
the wedding and honeymoon of Stephen Gerard, the Liverpool and England midfielder.

Thomas Cook refused to reveal the purchase price, although it said that the total gross assets of
Elegant were £22.3 million. It is the third acquisition in two months for Thomas Cook, which is
also known to be looking closely at opportunities in China and Russia.

In February it paid about £25 million for Hotels4U, the internet bed bank, then last month it
bought back control of its businesses in India and Egypt as well as the licences for the Thomas
Cook brand in 15 Middle Eastern countries from Dubai Financial Group for up to about £190
million.

The Elegant acquisition is part of Thomas Cook's push into the independent travel sector as it
seeks to reduce its reliance on the flat package market. It said the deal would build on its existing
presence in the high-value luxury holiday market through its Latitude and Thomas Cook
Signature brands.
Thomas Cook is understood to have faced competition for Elegant from rivals including Kuoni
and an unnamed private equity firm. Manny Fontenla-Novoa, chief executive of Thomas Cook,
said: "Elegant Resorts has a very strong brand name, associated with luxury, style and bespoke
holidays and fully supports our strategic aim to become a leading independent travel provider."

Thomas Cook AG was the parent company of Thomas Cook, Condor Airlines and other such
subsidiaries until 12 February 2007 when Thomas Cook AG announced that it had merged with
MyTravel Group PLC. The new combined company was named Thomas Cook Group plc.
It was originally incorporated on November 1, 1997 as "C&N Touristic AG" but the name was
changed following the 2002 acquisition of Thomas Cook. The Group was jointly owned by
Lufthansa and Karstadt, However Karstadt took control of the company two days before
Christmas 2006 by buying the half-share owned by Lufthansa, the German airline. Karstadt paid
€800m (£540m), though Lufthansa will for at least the next two years retain a stake in Condor
Airlines, Thomas Cook's in-house airline in Germany.
Cox and king
Cox and Kings Ltd which received shareholder approval to raise up to Rs2000 crore for global
acquisitions, is “actively working” on multiple buys in U.S., Europe and China. The firm, the
parent of UK-based unlisted Cox and Kings, gets around half its overall revenues from its
international operations and is looking at more overseas buys to drive future earnings and
growth. The company had received the approval to raise funds for future buys last month. Cox
and Kings had said in June the equity portion can be raised by way of local or international
offerings. Its most recent acquisition was of Australia-based My Planet Australia Pty Ltd & Ben
tours International Pty Ltd from a unit of TUI Travel Plc, last December.
The firm which has subsidiaries in US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Singapore, is
looking to acquire stake in a Chinese travel firm to grow in that region. In China, we are not
going to do a 100% acquisition, we are looking at having a small equity stake. Travel operator
Cox & Kings is scouting for acquisitions in the travel space even as it is all set to expand its
domestic and international business in the coming year, a senior company executive said.
Anil Khandelwal, chief financial officer, Cox & Kings India, said the company has earmarked
Rs 150 crore for buyouts. “Of the Rs 510 crore that was raised through our initial public offer,
we have reserved Rs 150 crore for acquisitions. This would not just be in the domestic front but
also in the international segment.

ACQUISITION AND JOINT VENTURES

During the year under review, your Company has successfully completed the acquisition of
Tempo Holidays Pty Ltd, Australia and Tempo Holidays NZ. USA offering private travel and
group travel to Latin America, Africa, Middle East, South East Asia, India and China mainly
serving high net worth clients.
Joint Venture Agreement with IRCTC:

During the year, your company has signed a Joint Venture Agreement with Indian Railways
Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd (IRCTC) to own and operate a Luxury Train on PAN
India basis. Pursuant to the said agreement, your company has subscribed to 50% share capital of
the Joint Venture Company i.e. Royale
Indian Rail Tours Ltd by subscribing 25,00,000 shares of Rs. 10 each.
Cox & Kings Travel Ltd UK, subsidiary of the Company, has acquired East India Travel
Company Inc, a boutique Travel company.

Customer Privacy and Data Policy

THOMAS COOK:-
Thomas Cook understands and respects the importance of your privacy. When you browse the
site, we do not collect personal information about you. The only way we will get any kind of
personal information is if you give it to us when we specifically ask for it. We ask you for
personal information in a variety of circumstances:
1. when you make a reservation or purchase something from our website or through our
customer service team - by email, letter, fax, or on the phone.
2. when you register with us, subscribe to our newsletter, enter competitions or register for
promotions
3. when you take part in surveys or provide us with feedback.
In order to help us maintain and improve our service to you Thomas Cook also uses 'cookies' to
collect information about your use of the website. Cookies are a feature of web browser software
that allows web servers to temporarily store information within your browser, which in turn
allows us to recognise the computer used to access Thomas Cook. Most browsers automatically
accept cookies but you can delete existing cookies from your browser. You can also edit your
browser options to choose not to receive cookies in future. We may use cookies to keep track of
the transaction from one page to the next.
We use third-party advertising companies (such as DoubleClick) to serve ads on other web sites.
These companies may use cookie-based information (not including your name, address email
address or telephone number) about your visits to this and other web sites in order to measure
advertising effectiveness. We may also collect information about your visit to our website, based
on your browsing (click stream) activities. This information may include the pages you browse
and products and services viewed or booked for example. This helps us to better manage and
develop our offers and to provide you with better products and services tailored to your
individual interests and needs. We may use this information to measure the entry and exit points
of visitors to the Site and respective numbers of visitors to various pages and sections of the Site
and details of searches performed. We may also use this information to measure the usage of
advertising banners, other click through from the Site. We may disclose information of this
nature in aggregate form to third parties, personal information on individual visitors will not be
passed on to any third party.
Email
Users who have subscribed to our e-mail service or visitors purchasing products on the Site who
have not opted out, will receive promotional mailings and e-mails from Thomas Cook
companies. Your personal details will not be passed to any other third parties except where
necessary to process your booking or enquiry. Your details may be passed to countries outside of
the UK and the European Economic Area in order to process and arrange for the products and
services you request. When you submit your booking or request to us you agree that we may use
and transfer your personal information in this manner. We will provide a summary of any
personal information held upon request. This information will only be sent to the e-mail address
on file for the subscriber name associated with it. To obtain an information summary please use
our online self help at flythomascook.custhelp.com.
Security
At Thomas Cook we take security very seriously. We have implemented a bank approved
encryption system to protect your transactions with us. Any personal details entered including
credit card payments will automatically be encrypted using VeriSign Secure Socket Layer (SSL).
You will see a padlock symbol at the bottom of your screen to confirm this so you can make
your purchase online with complete confidence. You can rest assured that with Thomas Cook we
take all aspects of your travel seriously - in fact, we'll help you feel secure throughout your travel
experience.
Use of personal details
We will retain the personal information you have given us (directly or via your travel agent) in
connection with your booking and also provide this to your airline and service provider, as
applicable. You should note that the airline/service provider may be located outside of the
UK/EU in a country which does not provide the same level of data protection as in the UK. We
will also retain the personal information you give us when you request or agree to updates or
further information from our website. In some cases we may need to process sensitive personal
information relating to you. For example if you make a special request relating to any special
dietary, religious or disability related requirements you may have, we may need to disclose this
data to the airline/service provider in order that the flight/service can be provided. By providing
us with this information, we are entitled to assume that you are happy for us to disclose your
details in this way if required. If you do not provide us with this information or do not wish us to
disclose it to the airline/service provider then we regret we cannot arrange for your request to be
provided and/or may be unable to sell travel insurance to you, if applicable.
We would also like to store and use your personal details for future marketing purposes (for
example, sending you a brochure or details of a promotion including by e-mail). We shall
assume that you are happy for us to do so unless you tell us otherwise.
Occasionally we contract with other companies to provide services on our behalf, for example
mailing information to our customers. We only provide those companies with the personal
details relating to our customers which they require in order to deliver the service. They are
prohibited from using that information for any other purpose. We will ensure that anyone to
whom we pass your details for this reason agrees to treat it with the same level of protection we
are obliged to provide.
CUSTOMER DATA POLICY:-
Consumers’ second highest priority when it comes to data security is trust in the brand. The
reputation of a company makes them believe that they will handle their personal data safely, say
23% of respondents, who took part in the November 2010 Data Tracker. Customers are more
likely to offer their personal details to a reputable brand than in return for a reward, the study
shows. David Cole, managing director of online research company fast.MAP, explains: “Trust, a
clear privacy policy and necessity prompt about 40% of consumers to divulge their personal
details.
“However, only 20% or fewer are tempted by frequent shopper points, free shipping, store cards
or a satisfaction policy.” The research also reveals that consumers have the lowest level of
confidence in sites with a high street presence (11%). Cole suggests: “This is possibly because a
great deal of media coverage has been given to the loss of data by several big-name high street
brands, such as TK Maxx [which suffered a data theft of 45.6 million credit and debit card
numbers], while online brands have so far largely escaped high-profile coverage of data loss.”
But the research, sponsored by Equifax, maintains that brands still aren’t doing enough to ensure
that the data entrusted to them by consumers is kept secure, especially when 22% say they have
suffered a security breach in the last six months, says Cole at fast.MAP.
“There is a structural, organizational problem about how data is managed and handled,” he adds.
Consumers are reacting to this trend by becoming more wary of the personal details they reveal.
Just over half (55%) of respondents are willing to give credit card details when buying goods
online, compared with 56% in June when the first wave of the study was carried out. And the
latest study reveals a 9% decline in the number of people willing to provide a postal address
when creating an email account compared with June.
Collecting data is a priority for brands and their marketers to retain and acquire customers, says
Chris Combemale, executive director of the DMA. But he adds: “With this demand has come
great responsibility. Consumers are now fully aware of the value and vulnerability of their data, a
fact that all too many brands have ignored at their cost.
“Identity theft and numerous well-publicized instances of organizational data losses mean
consumer confidence in sharing their personal details with businesses has been shaken. Brands
must be transparent in how they collect and use data, otherwise marketers face the prospect of
the well of consumer data drying up.
Cox & Kings – Privacy Policy

Cox & Kings believes that customer who books or looks for any services at
www.coxandkings.com / www.coxandkings.co.in has the right to know about the privacy
policy that is followed by us. For the trust the client has on Cox & Kings, we value the right to
your privacy.
The idea of this policy is to educate the user as to what personal information is being captured by
us and where the same is being used. It describes the principles and practices that apply to
Personal Information (defined below) collected from users of our services ("you") on our Site, in
telephone or e-mail communications, or in interviews, surveys, sweepstakes, contests, or raffles.
In short
1. We will not collect Personal Information without your knowledge and permission;
2. We will not knowingly disclose your Personal Information to third parties, except as
provided in this Privacy Policy;
3. We will take reasonable steps to protect the security of the Personal Information we
collect from you.
For unregistered users

We encourage you to register with us in order to book services on our website and to take
advantage of our customization features. However, you may choose not to register and take
advantage of any feature of our site where registration is not required.
If you do not register, then the information we collect from you is limited.
We log your IP address in order to help diagnose problems with our server, administer our Web
site and track usage statistics.
Your IP address may vary each time you visit, or it may be the same, depending on whether you
access our site through an always-on type of Internet connection (e.g., cable modem or DSL), or
through a dial-up connection (e.g., VSNL, MTNL etc). Either way, it would be extremely
difficult for us to identify you through your IP address, and we make no attempt to do so.
If you reached our site by clicking on a link or advertisement on another site, then we also log
that information. This helps us to maximize our Internet exposure, and to understand the interests
of our users. All of this information is collected and used only in the aggregate; that is, it is
entered into our database, where we can use it to generate overall reports on our visitors, but not
reports about individual visitors.
We also place a small file known as a "cookie" on your computer's hard drive. A cookie may
contain information that allows us to track your path through our Web site and to determine
whether you have visited us before. However, unless you register with us, it contains no
personally identifiable information that would allow us to identify you. Cookies cannot be used
to read data off of your hard drive, and cannot retrieve information from any other cookies
created by other Web sites. We use cookies in this manner to help us understand how visitors use
our site, and to help us to improve our site. You may refuse to accept a cookie from us by
following the procedures specific to your Web browser. Although you may do so, you may find
that your browser reacts strangely when visiting not only our Web site, but other Web sites as
well. Since cookies don't provide us with any information from which we can identify you, we
suggest you allow us to place one on your computer. If you are visiting a site where you will be
accessing your confidential account information, you will be required to accept cookies as it is
essential for site administration and security.
If you visit our site by "clicking-through" from a site operated by one of our partners, and you
have registered with that partner, then certain information about you that you have provided to
that partner may be transmitted to us. You should review the privacy policy of the Web site from
which you reached our site in order to determine what information was collected and how you
agreed that our partner could use that information. Regardless of what information was
transmitted to us, however, we don't keep it unless you register with us.

Registered Users

All users who choose to register themselves on our site www.coxandkings.com will be able to
do online transactions with us. You will be able to purchase services like Flights, Hotels, Car
Rentals, Packages, Cruises etc. available on our site.
If you register with us, we will collect personal information from you in addition to the non-
personal information described above. That personal information may include your name, email
address, mailing address, telephone number, travel preferences, passport number, user name and
password. The information we collect may vary, but we only collect the information that you
manually enter into our forms. We may store all or some of that information in a cookie file on
your hard drive, so that our system will recognize you each time you visit our site. In that way,
we can save your preferences from visit to visit and present you with a customized Web site,
without requiring you to log into our site every time you visit. To improve services and enhance
personalization, we may periodically obtain information about you from other independent third-
party sources and add it to your registration information. Additionally, authorized Cox & Kings
personnel may update your registration information to accurately reflect any new information
included in communications received from you.
If you visit our site by "clicking-through" from a site operated by one of our partners, and you
have registered with that partner, then certain information about you that you have provided to
that partner may be transmitted to us. You should review the privacy policy of the Web site from
which you reached our site in order to determine what information was collected and how you
agreed that our partner could use that information. We may or may not retain that information; if
we do, then we will only use it in accordance with our privacy policy, regardless of the policy of
the partner site from which you came to us.
If you reach our site through one of our partners (whether or not you have registered with our
partner), and you choose to register with us, we may be required to give our partner some or all
of your registration information. We will only do so in accordance with this policy, but we
cannot control how our partner uses the information. If you have questions about our partner's
privacy policy, you should review their policy before providing information to us. Of course, you
can ensure that the personal information you provide to us is not shared with our partners (except
in accordance with this policy), by visiting us directly instead of clicking-through from one of
our partners.

Cox & Kings is committed to your right to privacy. Below is information about the privacy and
data collection practices for the Cox & Kings web site with the URL: www.coxandkingsusa.com.

You can visit www.coxandkingsusa.com without telling us who you are or providing any
information about yourself. Cox & Kings will only collect information necessary to respond to
your requests for information and/or when you wish to contact us.

In these instances, Cox & Kings may ask for your name, address, e-mail address, phone number
and other appropriate information needed to provide you with these services. You will always be
able to ask us to remove your name from our mailing lists.

You may visit www.coxandkingsusa.com without providing any identifying information. If you
choose to give us personal information for any of the purposes above, this information is retained
by Cox & Kings and may be used by Cox & Kings to support your customer relationship with
us. For example, we may send you a mailed announcement of special offers or other new
services from Cox & Kings. However, Cox & Kings does not share, rent, or sell its lists to other
companies.

If you want to take your name off a Cox & Kings mailing list, or wish to update your information
(i.e. change your address), you may do so at any time. Whenever you request, Cox & Kings will
remove your personal information from future mailings made by Cox & Kings. To request
having your name removed from future mailings from Cox & Kings, or to update your
information, please let Cox & Kings know by letter, telephone or email to the address or phone
number listed below.

www.coxandkingsusa.com does provide links to other sites. Other Internet sites and services
have separate privacy and data collection practices. Once you leave www.coxandkingsusa.com,
Cox & Kings has no control or responsibility over the privacy policies or data collection
activities at another site.
 Customization
Cox and king:-
Your journey begins the moment you imagine yourself travelling.
Whether you’re embarking on a solo journey, planning a romantic trip with your soul mate, or
discovering the world with your family or cherished friends, we can help make your trip
unforgettable and design it just for you! Tell us your dreams, your aspirations, the activities you
want to enjoy, the luxury level you like and the special things you want to experience.
Our Travel Professionals will make it happen and artistically handcraft the perfect dream trip to
fulfill your personal desire for a great destination.
Disclosed is a method for customising the documentation associated with a component based on
the intended use, allowing only the information related to the current setup to be seen by the
user. A number of technologies expose to the user a programming model that consists of high-
level components that can be visually wired together to achieve the desired functionality using
graphical tools. Examples of such technologies are the mediation flow primitives for Web
Sphere Enterprise Service Bus (WESB), BPEL components in Web Sphere Process Server,
mediation nodes in Web Sphere Message Broker. A lot of effort goes into describing the
behaviour of these components depending on the various factors that affect it, other components
it interacts with, properties of the assembly it is part of, or its own properties. Often tables are
used to show how these factors interact. In a tooling environment like Eclipse it is possible to
see the documentation associated with a selected element in the Help View. The method
disclosed in this publication limits the documentation that is available for one component at any
given moment, based on the intended use of the component as configured by the user in the
corresponding tool. A customised help view would then show only the documentation for this
configuration, namely what the component does for the current setup. It is also a well known
fact that users are not very good at reading manuals and long documentation and learn about
new things by experimenting with them. This publication exploits the behaviour of natural
experimentation with the new technologies that the user has. It allows the user to discover the
functionality of a component in a piecemeal fashion how changing attributes affects what the
component does.
The sky is the limit, so dream big! We live for exceptional moments and we’ll help you live
yours.
THOMAS COOK:-
Plan your holiday as per your needs. Either select your region of choice or select exactly what
you’re looking for in your next destination. Be it adventure, beaches, religious pilgrimage or
romance— we’ve got all the places you would love to visit.
Plan Your Holiday
Know Your Destination

Find the right package:

Select Region Select Country Select City

Want to look Around?

I am looking for:

Family Romance

Adventure Shopping

Rejuvenation History & Culture

City Breaks

An organisation would be able to communicate consistently through all marketing channels,

building stronger brands with every campaign they do. In the real world however, companies
find it hard to capture time and creativity invested in marketing efforts and reuse them for future
actions in other marketing media. Thomas Cook is one of the organisations that realised the
potential of centrally storing all marketing assets in order to improve workflows and publishing
processes.

Tour operator Thomas Cook produces 10 holiday brochures per year for the 4 brands used in the
Belgian market (Neckermann, Sunsnacks, Pegase, and All Seasons). Facing the great cost factor
of these paper catalogues, they started looking for a tool that would generate a considerable
return on investment. At a time most companies were focusing on eMarketing, Thomas Cook
Belgium decided to improve its print catalogues production, bearing in mind that the efforts for
this application should be reusable for future actions in other marketing channels.

The hard way

Traditional catalogue production is a manual process. Thomas Cook’s situation was no

exception: texts were written and updated in word documents that were stored in different
locations, and in different versions. The 10,000 catalogue images were either stored in digital
formats -with copies on different PCs and servers- or stored in print archives at Thomas Cook
and at the prepress studios. To produce a new catalogue or update an existing one, much time
was lost trying to retrieve accurate and up-to-date materials. Physical folders were created for the
prepress, containing various information and material needed for catalogue creation. These
folders used to travel between Thomas Cook and its prepress agency, being a costly process.

For every minor change in material, emails were sent or packages containing CD’s and hard
copy material were sent by courier. There was no overview of which photographs were used for
which publication, no consistency in use of materials and so on.

It was a budget and time-consuming process, and the workflow management was very hard to
control between all parties involved.

Thomas Cook was aware of the heavy cost centre catalogue creation was and pushed by low
profit margins in the tourist sector, they started looking for a tool that could improve this process
and at the same time would provide a solid platform for future marketing actions. It was rather a
search for a business solution than a targeted search for a ‘digital asset management and
publishing tool’.

MediaMine turned out to be the ideal solution for both storage & management of all marketing
elements needed to build Thomas Cook’s catalogues, and for the actual catalogue creation
process. In the long term, MediaMine could also be used for other marketing efforts such as
online catalogues and tailored direct mail.

The MediaMine way

Implementation of the MediaMine software solution did not happen overnight. Realising the
heavy impact this would have on the way catalogues were produced, Thomas Cook decided to
launch a pilot project in which 3 catalogues would be built ‘the MediaMine way’.

After a thorough analysis by MediaMine Consultants and some customised development on the
MediaMine software solution, the migration of all existing data was the first big challenge for
Thomas Cook. This exercise enabled them to rethink the way these assets would be used in the
future and to store them in MediaMine according to their product structure.
All existing materials, stored in different locations, in different formats, both with Thomas Cook
as with prepress agencies had to be digitalised in order to be uploaded into the system. Parts of
these elements were only available in existing Quark documents and had to be extracted in order
to reuse them for future publications. This created the opportunity for Thomas Cook to work
more efficiently with their prepress agencies, which in turn made the relationship more cost-
effective.

Once the data migration process was finished, the actual catalogue production process was ready
to take off. This new method of producing catalogues required a different way of working by all
parties involved. Thanks to profound product training and involvement of staff working on
catalogue creation, the benefits of this new way of working soon became apparent.

Life with MediaMine

After successful completion of the pilot project, the internal adoption to this new way of working
seemed to be made. Compared with the traditional way of catalogue creation, the MediaMine
way remarkably shortens the production cycle. Prepress costs have diminished, without harming
relationship between Thomas Cook and these suppliers because this new situation creates
possibilities for prepress companies to combine prepress and IT competences.

Transport costs have dropped because all parties involved can now work seamlessly together on
one central platform, using a simple browser interface. Valuable time is saved because all
involved parties have easy access to all information and materials required. No more time lost
searching for, copying and recreating required catalogue materials.

This offers Thomas Cook the opportunity to reuse existing materials for different catalogues, and
at the same time offers them enough flexibility to keep the different brand identities.

Multi channel catalogues

Now that Thomas Cook has optimised their print catalogue production process, the stored
product information (like photographs, copy, etc) will be reused and repurposed for the creation
of online catalogues on an eBusiness site. MediaMine is a modular software that allows
extension of the software solution provided by adding the ePublisher and eCommerce modules.
The Neckerman brand already started using the MediaMine platform to feed their website.

This will increase brand consistency and shorten the time required to bring the product offering
online. The MediaMine platform defines in a significant way the way in which Thomas Cook is
designing its eBusiness future.

A future proof investment

Thomas Cook considers MediaMine to be an enterprise wide solution. The complexity and
volume of collateral they have will grow and change over the coming years and importantly for
Thomas Cook, MediaMine is a scalable platform to meet this requirement.
Other Subsidiaries of Thomas Cook observed the dynamic and efficient way Thomas Cook
Belgium is dealing with its catalogue production and are now running pilot projects with
MediaMine.

CONCLUSION
 Strategic business objective of CRM is to build loyal customer relationships

 Companies must be able to anticipate their customers’ needs

 Capitalize on the information assets by pursuing a strategy of customer

intimacy

 Use customer knowledge to differentiate and personalize services

 Maintain a targeted and relevant communications dialogue, which reinforces

relationship to customer loyalty.
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www.thomascook.in/tcportal/px/tcportal/aboutUs.do?name

brochure-store.com/Brochures/Thomas-Cook-Sport/.../Post

www.oppapers.com/subjects/sharemarket-mass-customisation-page9.html

events.eyefortravel.com/papers/Thomas_Cook_Final_adapt.doc

www.feelgdscholar.com/.../2009010753150_Essay%20-%20How%20can%20tour%20operators
%20use%20the%20Internet%20to%

www.sebi.gov.in/dp/coxkingsdraft.pdf

www.coxandkings.com/live/home/?CM_ID=116&link...

www.stockmarketsreview.com/.../cox_and_kings_ipo_review_analysis_and_recommendation_
20091118_1000112/

www.tribuneindia.com/2010/20100813/dplus.htm