Description of Thomson Holiday Group

Thomson Holiday Group is one of the largest tour operators in the world. It is ranked
among the best holiday groups known. Thomson Holiday Group is a trading division of the
Touristik Union International UK Limited. Once customers purchase holday packages from
Thomson Holiday Group, they agree to the terms, conditions and restrictions set by the
organization in its guide books. As a holiday group, Thomson operates the whole tour depending
on their packages. The organization owns everything required for any whole package. They do
their transportation using their own transportation means which includes cruises, cabs, plains and
buses among others. They also provide their customers with best accommodation which also
includes high quality services and quality food. The locations and destinations they provide for
their customers are those which are attractive to them.
Thomson Holiday Group understands that the little things matter in the success of any
business. The organization therefore ensures that it has a high number of employees as necessary
so that the customers are well served and they enjoy holidays that are special and better
compared to any others. The organization’s objectives are to ensure that foreign travel is
accessible to everyone. Thomson Holiday Group maintains a high number of staff all over the
world where its services are found and still retains a large collection of holidays that an
individual can choose from. For instance, an individual who wants to enjoy the best rated hotel
or cruise would be accorded it.

External Analysis of the market

Macro Analysis of Thomson Holiday Group

DESCRIPTION OF THOMSON HOLIDAY GROUP 3
The macro factors that affect any Organization are laid out in the PESTEL analysis tool.
The micro environment of a given market mainly affects the decisions that the organizational
management makes. Some of these macro environmental factors include changes in taxes, trade
barriers, new laws, changes in government policies and the changes in demographic factors. All
these factors are categorized as political, economic, social, technological, environmental and
legal (PESTEL).
Thomson Holiday Group requires to know the political factors that affect the
organization. Political factors are all factors on how the government affects the organization.
Thomson Holiday Group is an organization whose objectives require the company to interact
with different nations. This makes it essential for the organization to know the policies that have
been set by the governments of the home country as well as those of the foreign countries.
Political factors also include the services and products that the government provides the
organization with. For Thomson Holiday Group, these political factors include labor laws,
taxation, tread laws, environmental laws, tariffs and local council law (Heape, 1983).
For Thomson Holiday Group, the economic factors includes factors on the way the
organization makes its financial decisions. For instance, the rates of interests matters on the
capital of the organization. Some of the particulars of the economic factor that the organization
needs to be on the lookout for includes the economic growth of the home country. Once growth
deteriorates, the organization would be affected. Inflation is also another economic factor to look
out for. The organization has to make the right decision when signs of inflation set in within the
country. The customers of Thomson Holiday Group are mainly foreigners who need to be toured
around, this means that there will be a lot of money exchanges that take place within the
organization (Chen and Choi, n.d.).

DESCRIPTION OF THOMSON HOLIDAY GROUP 4
There are various social factors that would affect Thomson Holiday Group without
proper decision making. Some of the social factors that influence the organization includes the
cultural aspects. There are very many different cultures that the organization interacts with in the
course of its travel experiences. The awareness of the different cultures requires that Thomson
Holiday Group employs individuals from all the available cultures that it interacts with so that
the chances of success are improved. More of the social factors that affect Thomson Holiday
Group include age distribution of the stakeholders, people’s life styles, different cultural
festivals, geography, religious festivals and language behaviors.
In order for Thomson Holiday Group to attain the competitive advantage and remain
above its competitors, it is important that it keeps up with the newest technologies in the
industry. R & D activity is an important technological factor for Thomson Holiday Group to
consider keep using. When the organization invests more on research and development, it would
remain up-to-date with the latest technology and remain at the top of its competitors. Currently
there is a lot going on in the digital technology. Thomson Holiday Group could come up with
areas that it can apply this technology to increase its chances of success. Currently, Thomson
Holiday Group uses internet services on a high speed and this increases the speed of services to
the customers, that is, when customers are doing online bookings, any queries they may be
having are solved quickly. Technology keeps the company providing high quality services and
products to the customers. The types of buses, cabs and cruisers that the organization employs
makes use of the latest technology, thereby increasing the productivity of the company (Chen
and Choi, n.d.).
Environmental factors are important for the operation of Thomson Holiday Group.
Ecological factors are part of the environmental factors that Thomson Holiday Group watches

DESCRIPTION OF THOMSON HOLIDAY GROUP 5
for. While taking the customers around the tours the organization ensures that the packages
offered are not much affected by the environmental factors which often include the climate, the
issue of local wastes and the weather. Some of these factors such as the waste issues may
negatively affect the customers and thereafter lead to loss of the market share. Thomson Holiday
Group should always conduct surveys to the new areas of visit that they add onto their packages.
Legal factors are also external, macro environmental factors that affect every
organization including Thomson Holiday Group. Thomson Holiday Group should always be up-
to-date with all forms of legal issues that would affect the company. The organization is
supposed to be aware of Thomson’s legalities. The legalities and laws that affect Thomson
Holiday Group include the employment laws. Being aware of all the laws that touches on
employment helps the organization to easily deal with issues that arise from the employees.
Other legality factors that touch the company’s stakeholders and that are important to the
organization include discrimination laws, safety laws, customer laws and health laws. The
presence of a legal department within the organization ensures that legal issues are well taken
care of and do not arise to negatively affect the organization.
Micro Analysis Regarding Thomson Holiday Group
Micro market factors are the internal factors that affect the organization. These factors
mainly affect the manner in which services are delivered by Thomson Holiday Group. Most of
the stakeholders form the largest section these of internal factors, they include: the employees
and suppliers.
Employees form part of Thomson Holiday Group stakeholders that internally affects the
market of the organization. For the company, the employees form the largest cost. Since it is a

DESCRIPTION OF THOMSON HOLIDAY GROUP 6
tours travel company, there is a high number of employees. The organization ensures that the
high number is sufficient in order to meet the objectives of the organization. In addition, to
minimize the negative influence that may be caused by this factor, Thomson Holiday Group
takes measures such as job enrichment, employee flexibility, job enlargement, employee
motivation as well as job rotation. Employees are considered by the organization as the people
with a direct interest on the organization. The interests of the employees are therefore prioritized
by the organization (Heape, 1983).
The suppliers also form part of the internal factors that may affect the market of the
organization. Thomson Holiday Group considers all its suppliers as important section of the
organization (Thomson Holidays, 2016). To ensure everything about the suppliers is taken care
of, Thomson Holiday Group has supplies department that closely works with them to create a
good working relationship. The good relations with the suppliers as well as the interests of the
suppliers ensures that the customers get high quality services and products. Suppliers are in
charge of providing cruisers, plains, buses, cabs, resources required in the accommodations and
other materials that the organization requires.
Key Issues the Company Needs to Address in Developing its Marketing Activity
Thomson Holiday group needs to address various issues while developing a marketing
plan for the organization. The first thing to consider is the technological needs. An organization
such as Thomson Holiday group relies on customers from foreign countries that can only best be
accessed by use of the current available technology. In this case, Thomson should consider the
logistics and costs of building technology infrastructure that is necessary for that purpose.
Marketing is currently more technologically driven because Companies have to heavily rely on
heavy collection of data. In order to assess the marketing strategy that Thomson shall decide to

DESCRIPTION OF THOMSON HOLIDAY GROUP 7
use, collection of data, software-driven analysis and data driven promotions will be required.
Thomson should therefore address the time, effort and money that would be used on the
technological infrastructure (Radu et al, 2014).
Thomson should also address the long-term goals and visions while developing a
marketing strategy to use. According to Chhabra (2009), marketing efforts that the organization
would use should have long-term effects on the market. For instance, if Thomson Holiday group
considers to increase the areas coverage of its tours in the packages that they offer, the marketing
plan should capture that. This will require the company to first conduct a research from the target
market and learn what the target customers really like.
Evaluation of the marketing strategies is of utmost importance. This will help the
organization learn the market strategy that best works rather than spending resources on those
strategies that do not work. The evaluation results help in the optimization of marketing
efficiency. In its marketing strategies, Thomson might want to strengthen the loyalty of the
packages they offer or track the amount of sales they make from the packages they market from
the marketing strategy in place (Arionesei and Ivan, 2012).

DESCRIPTION OF THOMSON HOLIDAY GROUP 8

References

Arionesei, G, & Ivan, P 2012, ‘Marketing of Tourism Destinations from the Public Relations’
Perspective’, Revista De Turism – Studii Si Cercetari In Turism, 14, pp. 90-95, Hospitality
& Tourism Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 11 April 2016
Chen, J. and Choi, S. (n.d.). Internal Firm Structure, External Market Condition and Competitive
Dynamics. SSRN Electronic Journal.
Chhabra, D 2009, ‘Proposing a Sustainable Marketing Framework for Heritage Tourism’, Journal
Of Sustainable Tourism, 17, 3, pp. 303-320, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost,
viewed 11 April 2016
Heape, R. (1983). Tour operating planning in Thomson Holidays UK. Tourism Management,
4(4), pp.245-252.
Radu, A, Botos, A, Arsene, O, Teodorescu, N, & Ratiu, M 2014, ‘Study of the opinions of young
people – future specialists in tourism marketing – regarding the master plan for the
development of romanian tourism’, Romanian Journal Of Marketing, 2, pp. 75-82,
Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 11 April 2016.
Thomson Holidays, (2016). Thomson – Holiday Extras. [online] Thomson.co.uk. Available at:
http://www.thomson.co.uk/holiday-extras.html [Accessed 11 Apr. 2016].