The Tobago Tourism Agency has implemented a five pronged approach to deal with the fall out and deficit created by the collapse of the Thomas Cook Airlines, the parent company of Condor.
The agency announced its closure at the end of September, leaving several passengers stranded, including many Tobagonians as well as potential tourists expected to travel from Manchester to Tobago.
Commenting on the situation at a news conference held on Tuesday, CEO of TTAL Louis Lewis said, the agency had some internal meetings to discuss strategies moving forward including offering incentives to secure the business gained from the airline, as well as rolling out an aggressive marketing campaign that would shed more visibility on Tobago
“We presented a strategy to shift people who had booked to travel to Tobago onto different platforms, meaning Virgin Atlantic and British Airways, so that has happened. To achieve that, we have incentivised them by the cost of what it would take for them to transfer from Manchester, North of England, to Gatwick, so that was a one pound incentive. We also sought to encourage people who want to travel for that same winter period which would have been from October to April of next year, by providing a fifty pound incentive for bookings would result in travel within that window.... to cement the performance, we are actually implementing an augmented marketing plan” he said.
Lewis said with the closure of the airline, there has been a loss of air capacity into Tobago and they have started to engage a number of different airlines, as they look for options to replace the flow of arrivals.
He said since Tobago is in the business of flight sharing with other Caribbean islands, the agency is on the mission to encourage visitors to books their flights early, so that Tobago could get a greater share of the airline, but that too comes with challenges
“We have started discussions with at least four different airlines to see how it works out, but you can’t imagine how difficult an airline conversation is now, because some of the operators are shifting to capture the Thomas Cook business from several different areas. They are looking at their own fleet sizes and what has happened, a number of planes have actually been pulled out of the market, so availability is a bit challenging, so it’s a continuous dialogue that has very many dimensions to it” he added.