Brochures: Turning over a new leaf
Gone are the days of brochures acting as hotel catalogues. Abra Dunsby looks at the tour operators shaking up the look and feel of their offerings, and the agents who are now viewing brochures differently.
As the world becomes increasingly digitised and sustainable business practices more widely adopted, many tour operators have reconsidered their approach to producing brochures. Measures include scaling back on print runs, creating inspirational, glossy magazine-style content and including calls to action to encourage customers to book with their local agent.
Here are just some of the tour operators – and agents – rethinking their approach.
Rich content
At Jet2 holidays’ VIP agent conference last year, it announced a new collection of “brozines” – a hybrid of a brochure and a magazine.
Zoe Towers, head of product, explains the new concept: “From talking to [customers and independent travel agents], as well as our own analysis, it became evident that our brochures could better reflect how customers search for holidays these days.
“Our old brochures catalogued hotels very well, but they did not mirror the richer content found on the Jet2 holidays trade website, for example.”
She adds that the “new-look, features brochures” act as “inspirational tools” for agents, showcasing the company’s wide range of product.
The four new brochures – Find Your Destination, Families, Luxury and Discover More – have been well received by customers. “People are flicking through them, putting them down, picking them up again and engaging with the content. They’re proving incredibly useful as thought-starters and points of inspiration,” says Towers.
Crucially, the brochures are also helping agents clinch sales. “So many of our… agency partners have said the new brochures are acting as discussion points, drawing customers in and allowing them to close the sale,” explains Turner.
Gold Medal’s brochure strategy formed part of its brand review last year, which saw the Gold Medal and Travel 2 brands merge. After speaking to agents, the operator decided to keep producing brochures but at a reduced rate – it now produces three a year rather than 12, with a new worldwide title replacing the old destination-specific format.
Nick Hughes, interim sales and marketing director, comments: “For us, brochures are a lot more than just a directory of packages and prices; they really bring our brand to life and remain something our agent partners’ customers want, both for information and inspiration.”
He adds: “Our brand restructuring gave us a great chance to reflect a shift to digital and a greater awareness of our brochures’ environmental impact in our future strategy.”
Meanwhile, luxury operator Carrier has cited “digital overload” as a reason for the creation of its Our World coffee-table-style book, which has replaced its brochures.
“Carrier’s new concept aims to disrupt the way high-net-worth individuals engage with offline travel content; to provide an escape from a world of screens,” explains Natasha Towey, head of marketing.
Our World “[Moves] away from the wastage caused by traditional travel brochures and their annual print runs of tens of thousands,” and scraps offers in favour of a focus on aspirational travel content, she adds.
Agents who received the books were also given their own branded card inserts including a short bio and their contact details, with stands also provided to showcase the books in their stores.
NEW CHAPTER
While Beverley Travel – a member of Advantage Travel Partnership – still stocks a range of supplier brochures in back office, it no longer displays them in-store. Instead, the agency displays some copies of its own mini-brochure, which was created in December, or hands them to customers who are genuinely thinking about booking.
Director Karl Douglas explains: “When we opened in January 2020 people would come in, take [a supplier brochure] and never come back, and we’d have spent time unpacking them and putting them on display.”
Clients who book an appointment or provide their contact details are still able to request supplier brochures, and they’ll also receive the agency’s own A5 mini-brochure, which follows a brozine format.
Content “covers a whole range of holidays” and is arranged by holiday type, from ski to weddings and honeymoons, accompanied by “text that gives a taster of what the travel type is about”, and eye-catching imagery, all put together by their marketing-savvy apprentice, Millie Notarantonio. Offers are not included; instead each page includes a QR code, which, when scanned, takes clients to the agency website featuring live offers.
Suppliers have supported the mini-brochure by placing adverts within it, with Beverley Travel promoting featured suppliers’ offers on social media, at events and in email marketing in return.
Around 10,000 copies of the brochure were distributed around the town of Beverley in January, and feedback has been promising so far. “We’ve had lots of people messaging saying it looks fab, and others coming in saying: ‘I’ve seen your brochure and want to book’,” says Douglas.
Clients who come in and book a holiday are also given copies of the brochure to hand out to their friends and family, which Douglas hopes will lead to more referrals.
The agency will produce another mini-brochure this year, to be distributed in December 2022 and January 2023. “We’re located in a busy shopping centre, so there are lots of people out at that time of the year that we could hand the brochures out to, and we’ll also hand them out at Christmas events and our own Expo event.”
The brochure includes the agency’s contact details and an “About Us” page, which Douglas says is a great way of shouting about the value of booking with an agent. “Our value add is us as people and the service we offer,” he says, adding that the brochure is a great brand reinforcement tool. “It gets the message out there that we’re here, investing in marketing and open for business.”
Stop the press
Gemma Antrobus, owner of Haslemere Travel and member of Aito, did away with in-store brochures back in 2005. She explains why.
Back then, clients used agents just to collect brochures and then book directly. [Scrapping brochures] meant that if anyone ever popped in to do this, they had to talk to a team member. This meant engaging with the client, finding out what they were looking for and then impressing them with our knowledge and service.
[Instead of using brochures in the sales process] we use our own images and video content provided by hoteliers. We also arrange three-way calls or Zooms with clients and specialist operators if it’s somewhere really niche that we’ve not been able to visit yet.
If clients are really keen for a brochure, we can still get a copy from the supplier for them.
The environment is a factor in never re-introducing brochures now. The waste, even when just keeping file copies, is huge – I can’t imagine what it’s like if you have a shop full of brochures.
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