Seniors on board! Customer retention among +55-year-old customers. Case TUI.

Travelling has been an essential part of people’s lives for long. The senior market has become an interest among tourism service providers. The segment is growing both in size of the market and individual consumers. These senior consumers have more time to spend for travelling and better finances than the previous generations. The senior consumers travel further and want to stay for longer than the other cohorts. TUI, being the largest tour operator in the Nordics has identified the senior segment as one of their key target groups. TUI marketing would like to understand the preferences and travel habits of this chosen segment, the +55-year-olds. The objective of this research was to find out how TUI can develop their customer retention in the chosen target group of +55-year-old travellers. The objective of providing superior value to customers compared to competition is having highly satisfied customers. The strategy of customer retention is about keeping the customers with the company by providing superior value compared to competition. This way customers see no reason to switch to another company. It is said that winning new customers is more expensive than keeping the existing ones. For customer retention to work profitably, companies shall divide their customers based on profitability to different tiers and develop strategies for each tier. Creating customer value and satisfaction are in the core in tourism marketing. In addition to looking at the generic 4 P’s of marketing, it is important to add an additional 4P’s of tourism marketing. The study was conducted as a quantitative research. A questionnaire was chosen as the suitable data collection method. The questionnaire was sent via TUI CRM system for a chosen target group matching the studied criteria. The questionnaire was built in webropol and the results were analyzed with the help of tilastoapu. 83% of the respondents have a positive image of TUI. These respondents are looking for a relaxed sun holiday that offers new experiences, rest and relaxation and value for money. These present the key determinants when the respondents decide which tour operator to travel with. The majority of the respondents consider themselves as being price sensitive travellers. Getting the entire booking through one service provider is appreciated. These respondents characterize their preferred holiday type being a package including flights, accommodation and meals. These respondents are willing to explore and get to know new people and cultures while travelling. The usage of internet is vast and these customers are willing to recommend and utilize travel recommendations from others. Single-traveller wishes as well as other domestic departures outside Helsinki were seen as areas for development