A tour operator’s app — MyTUI, Corendon or Sunweb — binds the traveller to the tour operator, not to the travel agency that sold the trip. These apps also only work for that particular supplier’s own packages. For independent travel agencies and travel advisers in Belgium and the Netherlands, this means two things: you are invisible in the app for package holidays, and there is no app at all for trips you put together yourself. This article explains why that is an opportunity rather than a threat.
What does a tour operator’s app actually do?
Apps such as MyTUI are well designed and useful: boarding passes, travel documents, hotel information and updates about the supplier’s own package. But they have two built-in limitations:
- they work only for that particular tour operator’s packages — an individual excursion, your own hotel extension or a trip from another supplier will not appear in it;
- they carry the tour operator’s brand — the logo, colours and notifications belong to TUI or Corendon, not to the travel agency that advised the customer.
Why doesn’t that app bind the customer to your agency?
The traveller uses the app every day of the trip and associates the entire experience with the brand they see on their screen. With a tour operator’s app, that is the tour operator. The consequences for the travel agency are:
- your name is nowhere to be seen during the trip;
- the customer is more likely to book their next trip directly with the tour operator — the app actively encourages this;
- fellow travellers who look at the app see a supplier brand, not a travel agency.
A tour operator’s app is therefore not a service you provide to your customer — it is a channel from the tour operator to your customer.
Is your own travel app an attack on the tour operator?
No, and that is the most important insight for anyone who is hesitating. Your own travel app works per trip, not per customer relationship:
- if you sell a TUI or Corendon package holiday, your customer simply receives that tour operator’s app — as always;
- if you put a trip together yourself — a touring holiday, driving holiday, honeymoon or combination of suppliers — there is no tour operator’s app, so you provide your own app in your own brand style.
Both can exist side by side. Nothing changes in your relationship with the tour operators; you simply fill the gap they inevitably leave open.
Which trips can you use your own travel app for?
For the work where your margin and expertise lie — the trips that no supplier app can display:
- tailor-made trips and touring holidays;
- driving holidays with multiple stays;
- combined trips involving different suppliers;
- group trips and honeymoons;
- any itinerary where your own tips and choices make the difference.
To find out how an itinerary becomes an app in just a few minutes, read From itinerary to personal travel app.
What if the tour operator copies these features?
Features can be copied — anyone can create a weather forecast or daily itinerary. What a tour operator cannot copy without abandoning its own brand strategy is an app in your agency’s brand style. The entire purpose of their app is to strengthen their own brand and sell directly. Your advantage is therefore structural: it is not what the app contains, but whose logo appears on the customer’s home screen. Read How independent travel advisers can stand out from online booking sites to find out why that is commercially decisive.
Compete where the tour operator cannot
The rise of tour operator apps is no reason to wait — it proves that travellers value having a daily travel companion like this. The only question is whose brand appears on it. For package holidays, that is the tour operator; for everything you put together yourself, it can be your agency. See what an app like this contains on the features page.
Put your brand on the trips you put together yourself. Generate a demo app in two minutes in your own brand style, or get in touch.
