A burning flame, borrowed from the Olympic Games, has been Olympic Holidays’ logo since the company was established in 1967. But as a business, the tour operator has traditionally tended to hide its light under a bushel.
As the UK’s 11th largest Atol-holder, licensed to carry just under 300,000 passengers a year, it sends almost as many customers abroad as Virgin Holidays.
But while the Greece and Cyprus specialist hasn’t necessarily sought recognition of this fact within the industry, that is about to change, as the operator embarks upon an ambitious strategy to grow and develop the brand.
January heralded Olympic’s biggest ever January marketing campaign, including 675 outdoor advertising slots – a first for the operator – such as digital posters on the London Underground and at shopping centre Westfield.
January also saw Olympic’s biggest ever trade push, with more marketing materials provided to agents than ever before; homeworkers also received brochures for the first time.
Carl Catterall, whose previous roles in travel include at Saga Holidays and McCluskey International, joined the business in the newly created position of director of marketing and communications last summer.
“Investing more in marketing is pivotal to our growth strategy,” Catterall explains. “We’re doing it in different ways now, ways that people haven’t seen from us.
“And an even bigger share of the overall marketing mix is for agents,”
It was important for Olympic to understand agent perception of the brand before shaping its new strategy. Research revealed that while agents liked the brand – particularly its commitment to price parity – they tended to rely upon it for late deals.
“They recognised that we’ve been running a long time, and knew we had great prices, but told us our brochure wasn’t as visually attractive as some others,” says Catterall. Brochures have been simplified and redesigned, with fewer words and less introductory information, in response.
Significant investment has now been made in the on-the-road team, taking it from one to three sales managers. Last September, Olympic hosted its first agent fam trip in many years, with more planned for 2016, and an online training course for agents is coming soon.
The focus of any training, Catterall says, is always to help agents distinguish between the different regions of Greece, and the new brochure helps agents choose the right island group, and island, for clients.
“People think they’ve ticked off Greece by visiting one or two islands, but there are more than 230 islands; the variety is incredible,” he insists.
