Airtours and Going Places pilot new My Travel brand

There are already four pilot My Travel stores in operation to test the format, with a further two 'holiday megastores' planned to open next month in Norwich and Teeside. Airtours Holidays will also be subject to the name change, facilitating a wholesale re-branding of its entire fleet of planes in fresh 'My Travel' livery.

Explaining the thought processes and history behind the move, Airtours and Going Places marketing director Tim Marsden said: "The point was raised that the name Airtours plc could be restraining the business because everyone thought that it was simply Airtours Holidays. Obviously there's a lot more to the company than that. Allied to this was the fact that we've recently purchased (holiday firm) TSI in America, a company in Germany and we've been operating in Europe for a while. It was therefore important that the business started to represent itself as a global brand."

"All these things came together and the decision was made that actually we'd become My Travel plc, the distribution channels will be My Travel, the airlines My Travel Airways and the financial services business My Travel Financial Services."

The name itself originates from the aforementioned purchase of TSI in America, in which Airtours acquired a website called Mytravel.co.com that specialised in selling cruises over the internet. This apparently sparked off discussions relating to Airtours e-business, which escalated into a wider branding issue.

The re-packaging of the firm's high-street presence will be one of the first high-profile changes as the Going Places brand is gradually replaced. The pilot stores 'went live' on 27 December.

Explaining the changes in-store Marsden said: "We're aiming to make the holiday retailing experience more fun - more like a holiday itself. To achieve this we're moving away from the boring transactional service, the shops that have a financial institution look with adversarial 'bankers' desks'. We're trying to create a different atmosphere, to open the place up and make it more interesting whilst bringing in higher levels of service and better staff training and product knowledge."

Marsden added that to help achieve a change in brand perception amongst the customer base new services would also be introduced, such as the 'drop and go' system. "Basically this means that people can write their holiday requirements on a piece of paper, 'chuck' it at the welcome desk and go off to do what they want. When they come back in one hour, two hours, whenever, we'll have some holiday ideas waiting there for them."

The corporate identity for the new brand was developed by London-based Corp Brand, with Cracka, also based in the capital, designing the new in-store look. The re-branding of the group will spell uncertain times for Manchester agencies Connect-point, who handle the Airtours brief, and Clear (see feature on page 14), who will face an interim period without the business as the brand is bedded in. Duckworth Finn Grubb Waters look set to handle the initial brand duties from the summer onwards. Marsden explained: "Any brand in its infancy needs custodianship. DFGW will develop the initial advertising tasks for the group, but this may well change again given the fullness of time."