Thomas Cook by Araf Noor Iqbal (203 5470 660)

Introduction : Thomas cook (1808-1892) was an English innovator and he was the founder of
the modern day Thomas cook & sons. He was said to have invented modern tourism. Originally
they would only operate via trains to transport passengers between the cities of Leicester,
Nottingham, Derby and Birmingham. They would arrange tours for customers who want to
travel and they have a lot different packages for every different tour. Later, they would expand to
all parts of the world and invest in other businesses like hotels and aviation. There were many
hotels under Thomas Cook and they also had a huge airlines.

Covid-19 impact: Thomas cook like another travel and aviation company was impacted
immensely by the pandemic. They had to shut down all their tourism activities along with their
aviation facilities because of the undergoing restriction of travel all over the world. They had
incur enormous maintenance cost due to their big aviation company, hotels and approximately
30000 staff. They had to maintain their planes, hotels and pay their employees the full amount
while there were no operations possible due to the restrictions. People could not travel even if
they wanted to as this would impose a fine on every traveler which no one wants.

As a result of this they were accumulating debt at an unprecedented rate. Debt accumulation was
a previous problem of them which resurfaced again in 2020 and a last ditch effort to recover the
company by making a deal with UK Civil Aviation Authority went wrong and that was the last
nail in the coffin. Furthermore, rather than covid-19 Thomas Cook had other problems like
coping with the every changing environment. There were much easier and budget friendly
travelling agencies like Jet2, EasyJet etc. Airbnb was an easier online hotel booking platform
which was much more user friendly and cheaper to book compared to Thomas Cook. Now-a-
days most customers plan their own vacation rather than go to an agency which Thomas cook did
not foresee and then use Airbnb to book a hotel. Overall the cost of travelling reduced as the
days went on but Thomas Cook still followed the old methods and kept the price high which was
one of their ultimate downfall as they could not foresee the events of the future.

Thomas Cook had its fair share of bad business deals like merging with MyTravel Group which
was one of their worse deals because the company made profits after every 6 years which at this
day and age is completely unacceptable. Eventually Thomas Cook was forced into liquidation
and the company was bought by Fosun International by $14.4 million. Thus, Thomas Cook who
had operated for 178 years are now a mere shadow of what they were. They had to lay off 30000
employees of which 21000 were international employees and 9000 were UK citizens.

Holistic Marketing approach:

One of the main problems that Thomas Cook had faced was that it did not adapt to the changing
environment. All other travel agencies were giving more lucrative offers compared to Thomas
Cook at much lower prices and had a lot more added benefits. So they couldn’t create much
customer value and after sales services compared to others and thus they failed at integrated
marketing. One way to prevent this was to take customers feedback on what they were lacking
and how to improve their service. Hotel booking was made much easier with Airbnb rather than
Thomas Cook so they should have come up with a better strategy or offer something more
lucrative to the customers compared to their competitors. This is where they failed at integrated
marketing.

Performance marketing was a major issue in this because they have made a lot of bad deals in the
past especially with MyTravel group which in its financials show that they make profit after
approximately every 6 years of operations. Their financials analysis should have been much
more thorough so that they could have avoided this deal which ended up demolishing them.
Furthermore, they should have cared about their customers instead of stranding them all overseas
which lead to their reputation to plummet. In this day and age reputation is a key factor while
doing business.

Suggestion for Bangladeshi companies:

Companies in Bangladesh should always try to keep up with the trend. They should always be
aware of what their competitors are offering. In Bangladesh no matter what you are offering
there will always be someone who will offer the same product at a lower price so companies
must tackle that and offer something much better in return. One of the main reasons that the
biggest companies even succumb is due to very bad deals and the ever rising debt. So companies
in Bangladesh must be very careful while analyzing other companies while making a deal and
they should never borrow so much that they cannot pay, this should be the first and foremost rule
of companies in Bangladesh. During the pandemic most of the companies lot a big proportion of
their wealth so they should have alternative methods of tackling these. Retail stores should take
their business online and use third party courier services to deliver the product to the desired
customer and also they must offer after sales service. Physical doctor appointments have turned
into online doctor’s appointment during the pandemic. Different automotive markets are offering
home services which is a huge help during the pandemic.

So overall we are seeing that successful markets are basically following the trend of the overall
market and getting results. So the ultimate advice to Bangladeshi businesses would be to follow
the market trend and always offer products that deliver a greater value compared to the price.
Customer relation maintenance is a must and never borrow so much that you are unable to pay.