Over 50s -will we mourn the loss of the traditional holiday brochure?

As reported in the press ‘Sun sets on the holiday brochure’ Daily Mail we are witnessing the demise of the traditional holiday brochure as more-and-more of us turn to the web to search for our next holiday. Thomson Tui the largest leisure, travel and tourism company in the world have formally announced they will be phasing out brochures for their brands including the much-loved Thomson and First Choice brands.

It’s understandable to see how this policy stacks up when you look at the numbers; the Company has in excess of 5.5million customers a year, currently printing 4.7million brochures a year under 58 separate titles. Though there seems no way back from this decision this will not happen overnight and the plan is to end brochure printing in its entirety by 2020.

The Daily Mail reported ‘This could spell the end of glossy travel brochures, which helped fuel the rise of cheap package holidays and became known for their flowery, often euphemistic descriptions.

The term ‘lively’ was used to describe crowds of drunken Club 18-30 holidaygoers partying around the clock, while ‘walking distance to the beach’ could mean a route march in 90-degree heat crossing busy roads.’

So its looks like the days of selecting bundles of glossy brochures from your high street travel agent are numbered, in this office we can all recall marking the favourites with a biro or perhaps a posit note and whittling them down to the finalists before proceeding to the many flights and connections graphs and graphics tucked away at the end of the brochure.

Thomson’s new look high street branches named ‘holiday design stores’, will dispense of brochure racks in their place will be iPads and interactive maps. TUI has also launched a phone and tablet app, mobile-friendly website and an Apple TV app.

Will you miss thumbing through a brochure or are you already a ‘surfer’ on the internet when it comes to your holidays bookings?