Thomas Cook has relaunched as an online travel agent, offering only destinations on the UK government’s safe travel corridor list.
Fosun acquired the Thomas Cook brand and its IP assets for £11m in November last year.
Alan French, UK CEO, said: ‘We have reinvented one of the most recognisable names in British travel. Our new business will combine fantastic UK-based customer service with an updated operating model protected by Atol and with the backing of a multibillion-dollar organisation. ‘We are launching now clearly aware of the short-term challenges posed by the pandemic. We and our Fosun backers are taking the long view and we want to offer choice, customisation and 24/7 on-holiday customer care to families who wish to travel now and in the future.’
The company said: “We know you still want to travel. And we’re here to make things easier.
We’ve removed all the places you can’t go, so you can only book destinations that meet official guidelines and where there are no quarantines in place when you return. All our rooms are flexible too, which makes it easier to change dates if the rules change.”
Fosun had been a shareholder in the company, which was broken up after announcing its liquidation last September.
Fosun told the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, “With a history of 178 years, the Thomas Cook brand is the frontrunner of establishing [the] tourism industry and one of the most well-known tourism brands around the world.
“The acquisition of Thomas Cook as a global brand would enable the group to expand the tour operator business riding on the robust growth momentum of Chinese outbound tourism, leveraging the extensive brand awareness and profound influence of Thomas Cook.
“The introduction of Casa Cook, Cook’s Club, the resort/hotel brands under the Thomas Cook brand would further enrich the offering of accommodation[s] choices for tourism destinations business by the group, diversify its resort and hotel operations and improve the Foliday [aka Fosun Tourism Group] ecosystem in providing customers with quality holiday experience[s] across the globe.”
The Foliday platform focused on families and was part of what the group referred to as its “happiness ecosystem,” which also included Club Med and brewer Tsingtao and French fashion house Lanvin.
Earlier this year Fosun Tourism chairman Qian Jiannong said that company was seeing the epidemic “changing consumers’ perception on consumption profoundly”.
Jiannong said that the outbreak meant that “consumers generally expect a higher quality and better service in tourism”. He said: “We believe that our upgraded products will better meet the market’s future demand. We proactively responded to the epidemic with reasonable cost control on operations and headquarters’ expenses and maintaining a stable financial position.”
The Fosun chairman said: “The current epidemic is an international public health crisis, yet our innovative business model helps the group to withstand the crisis, reap the rebound opportunities after the epidemic crisis and look for opportunity and driving force of sustainable growth amid the crisis.”
Insight: You may well be sitting here thinking that you don’t need another online travel agent, but you may well be wrong and consider the apology for that accusation in the post.
Trust is becoming the watchword of this pandemic. More than ‘clean’, as trusting that a hotel has been cleaned to much-vaunted standards is an issue of its own. But while we all gaze into our bank accounts, releasing any cash in the direction of a holiday seems like a risk when so many found that their cash ended up trapped in a loop of vouchers and denial. Any purveyor of holidays with a trusted brand will do well here.
Where Thomas Cook cannot guarantee anything is who will and won’t be landing on - or taken off - the quarantine list, much as it would like to. That would involve trusting that the government will support travel and look more closely at testing regimes, which is an area none of us can guarantee.