Holidaysplease

The Birmingham-based company has been operating since 2002 and currently uses its holidaysplease.co.uk website to generate 90% of its enquiries, which are then handed over to its team of experienced homeworkers.

Holidaysplease initially plans to launch online booking to key destinations such as the Indian Ocean, Caribbean and Far East from late spring 2016, focusing mostly on beach-based holidays and hotels which are “straightforward point-to-point orientated trips”.

Online booking will be the latest stage of web development for the firm, which has forged its business by combining online enquiries with strong customer service. This has helped the agency to earn an average score of 9.9 out of 10 on reviews website Trust Pilot.

The introduction of online booking comes after the last year has been spent improving the website’s functionality and streamlining the customer journey from arrival to making an enquiry.

This has helped to increase the visitor-to-enquiry conversion rate by 42% year-on-year as well as reducing the cost of acquisition by around one-third. These improvements have been achieved at the same time as recording an increase in visitor numbers.

Another major initiative has been to introduce an online loyalty rewards programme for customers, which operates through the website.

Since the launch in early 2015, Holidaysplease has signed up more than 4,000 of its best customers to the loyalty scheme, which offers them discounts and the chance to use their points for add-ons such as excursions, spa treatments and special meals.

This has helped the company to increase its retention of customers through an improved ability to market the right holidays to them through “tailor-made sales messages” based on their profiles and preferences.

Holidaysplease is also planning to add more hotels to its website in the coming months to further strengthen its programme.

• holidaysplease.co.uk