Tollman: Uniworld Targets Millennials As Tour Brands Pursue OTAs

Brett Tollman, CEO of The Travel Corporation, spoke at this year’s Skift Global Forum in New York.

Uniworld will operate cruises aimed at a younger market starting in 2018, according to Brett Tollman, CEO of The Travel Corporation (TTC), which owns the river cruise line.

In an interview at the Skift Global Forum in New York last week, Tollman said Uniworld will be offering  youth-oriented cruises on the Danube and Seine Rivers that feature late-night shore excursions offering nightlife opportunities and later breakfast hours for those sleeping late.

Contiki, TTC’s youth-oriented tour operator, will sell into the cruises, which will be aimed at the 80-million-strong Millennial market.

OTAs are ‘a missed opportunity’
As fas as The Travel Corporation’s efforts to sell products of its tour companies, including Trafalgar, through OTAs such as Expedia, Tollman said he will keep encouraging the OTAs to invest in the necessary technology.

“We are channel-agnostic,” he said. “We have to keep growing to do well, and not being on OTAs is a missed opportunity for us. I have to be a squeaky wheel, because we need to get the technology onto those sites.”

“Nobody owns the customer––not the travel agent or the supplier,” he said. “The challenge for us is to connect with people. I don’t mind if they book with OTAs––unless the OTAs charge us 30%.”

Another big challenge, he said, is changing the image of escorted tours. To that end, his company now uses terms like “guided journeys.”

Supporting travel agents
But the company also remains loyal to its traditional travel-agent channel, including Trafalgar initiatives to develop more e-learning sites and enhancements to its points loyalty program.

“We always have and always will support the travel trade. Trafalgar gets 80% of its bookings through the trade, while Contiki is 50-50 agent-direct,” he said. “And Millennials trust agents.”

Kayak founder to open Lola to all agents
Also at the Skift conference, Paul English, co-founder of metasearch engine Kayak, said his new business Lola will be opened up to travel agents “around the world” as it heads into its next phase.

Lola is an app that connects consumers to live travel agents after an initial exchange with artificial intelligence (AI) tools. English said he currently has a team of 20 full-time agents, selected through an online examination followed by a Skype exam.

Lola is currently in stage one, English said; stage two will add a U.S. call center and take the product to a more global audience.

‘We’ll always need agents’
Lola will continue to develop its AI capabilities, English said, but he stressed that “there will always be a need for agents.” There are things artificial intelligence can’t do, he said, like call an airline to change a flight, or find a hotel room.

“The only way to revolutionize the experience for travelers is to revolutionize it for travel agents,” said English.

Currently Lola is available only in the Apple app store, but it is expected to expand to desktop and Android in the first quarter of 2017.