Identity Crisis or Innovation? Update on Europe's Tour Operators and the Battle for Travel Market Dominance

Summary

The central battle over Europe's lucrative €260 billion travel market is now taking place online. For the big tour operators (TOs), competition is heating up on all fronts, with online travel agencies (OTAs) growing at six times the rate of established global brands like Thomas Cook and TUI Travel. But even while more Europeans book their own travel, vacation packages and the full-service products offered by TOs remain popular in the region. Thomas Cook and TUI also remain strong and trusted brands with the European traveler, with increasingly diverse portfolios of not only companies in tours, but also accommodations OTAs and wholesale businesses. In short, not all is lost for these stakeholders, particularly if they successfully migrate content and booking functionalities onto a digestible, user-friendly online format.