January 28 2007

Woolworths to sell holidays and flights

Woolworths has started selling discount holidays, flights and hotel rooms online in what it says is "a bid to bring greater competition to the travel market."

Woolworths has teamed up with travel specialist the PPA Group (its wefly.co.uk brand also operates an online travel operation for Asda). If the site proves successful, Woolworths may open travel desks in some of its 821 bricks and mortar stores.

This expansion by Woolworths out of its core area will be interesting to watch. Like Asda, It has the big name to put behind the 'partnership' with wefly and is associated with value for money but, as the travel industry is speculating, will people "want to buy a holiday from the people they buy their pic n mix from?"

"People may not expect to find Woolies selling holidays, but our web offer is expanding at a rapid pace and offering many non-traditional Woolworths products at market beating prices. People didn't expect Woolworths to sell new cars, but the car site has been a huge success and encouraged us to move into the travel market," said Woolworths' Marketing Director Stephen Robertson.

Customer response to the Woolworths' enhanced multi-channel capability and the launch of its Big Red Book have been "very positive," according to the company's latest trading statement. "Resulting customer orders exceeded expectations and as a consequence multi-channel sales grew over the 6 weeks to 13 January by 204%."

The company says that despite this rapid growth, it was able to maintain "an excellent customer experience with reliable fulfilment of multi-channel orders, although maintaining service levels added some unbudgeted cost which we do not anticipate will recur."

Emma Herrod