How Thomas Cook Achieved a Fivefold Increase in Traffic by Implementing BRIDGE Store Locators

LONDON, April 10, 2018 (Newswire.com) - Thomas Cook, the pioneer of package holidays, completed its digital transformation at the end of 2016 by implementing the BRIDGE Store Locator for both Jet Tours and Thomas Cook France. Its three core objectives were to optimise the online visibility of its agencies, to generate traffic and qualified leads, and to improve the experience and satisfaction level of customers from the initial online search through to their appearance in the physical travel agency.

Each of Thomas Cook France’s 450 travel agencies was given a dedicated Local Page within the Store Locator, which are optimised for local SEO. These pages provide users with basic agency information including, a map, opening hours and photos of each location, as well as a personalised greeting from the respective agency. Agencies have been able to generate leads and in-store traffic for the agencies through the presence of calls to action and contact forms within each Local Page. 

Thomas Cook also implemented BRIDGE's Online Listings solution, allowing the company to synchronise its local data with Google My Business, one of the largest listings providers in the world. The agencies are now able to benefit from organic optimised indexing on Google search results. The BRIDGE solution offers customers a seamless, cross-channel shopping experience, from the web to the physical agency. 

The group saw immediate results, including a fivefold increase in traffic within three months as well as:

• 43% of online traffic driven from organic search on Google
• 750 calls to agencies generated daily from the store locator
• Threefold increase in online traffic from mobile devices
• 1,500 completed contact forms sent to agencies

Hervé Witasse, Director of e-Commerce at Thomas Cook says:
“When we redesigned our jettours.com site, we wanted to have a multi-channel dimension as a key element of the site navigation system and to develop a strong relationship between the website and our physical sales channels. With the help of the BRIDGE team and six months of collaboration, we constructed our new online to offline platform for the Jet Tours site, which had been in decline.”

“We saw immediate results after we put our two store locators online, with a tripling of traffic in the first weeks – and it has continued to increase since – thanks to the improvements in search engine indexing. Today, the BRIDGE solution lets us measure, in real time, the qualified leads sent to each agency by phone or via the online quote form. We have seen an impressive level of answered calls and a very strong conversion rate on the first sales reported by our agencies.”

Cyril Laurent, Co-founder and CEO of BRIDGE platform by SoLocal Group, says:
“All businesses and brands need to invest in the online presence of every one of their locations. This is further proof that online to offline is a key source of growth for companies and it is one with limitless potential. For each agency and salesperson, it is now possible to "reach out" via the web to the very large number of customers who want a real-life person to accompany them on their purchase journey. These technologies have reached a new level of maturity that is leading our clients to choose software as a service (SaaS) providers to accelerate their operational deployment. Clients are benefiting from the innovative services which enable them to target all customer-facing channels within their online strategy, whether on their own sites, in SEO, in SEA, on social networks or the main hubs of local online traffic.”

About Thomas Cook
Pioneer of travel packages, Thomas Cook plc is a major player in the tourism industry in Europe and throughout the world, with more than 22 million clients. In France, Thomas Cook is the name behind the number one tourism and leisure network and Jet Tours is the fifth largest tour operator with approximately 10 % of the market. The business has almost 450 points of sale across France and over 1000 partners. Its omnichannel strategy means that clients have access to a wide range of ways of making a reservation (Internet, phone or physical travel agency).

About BRIDGE by SoLocal Group
BRIDGE is the leading online to offline marketing platform helping brands and retail networks capture local search traffic and convert it into in-store footfall. More than 220 brands around the world trust BRIDGE and use the Store Locator, Local Pages and Online Listings products daily.

About SoLocal Group
SoLocal Group, European leader in local online communication, reveals local know-how, and boosts local revenues of businesses. The Internet activities of the Group are structured around two business lines: Local Search and Digital Marketing. With Local Search, the Group offers digital services and solutions to clients which enable them to enhance their visibility and develop their local contacts. Thanks to its expertise, SoLocal Group earned the trust of some 490,000 clients of those services and over 2.4 billion of visits via its 4 flagship brands (PagesJaunes, Mappy, Ooreka and A Vendre A Louer) but also through its partnerships. With Digital Marketing, SoLocal Group creates and provides the best local and customised content about professionals. More information may be obtained at www.solocalgroup.com

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For further information or media enquiries, please contact: Maria Hughes at [email protected] or 020 7242 0142. 

Source: Thomas Cook