How Thomas Cook can empower their staff to help save the UK high street
The Living High Street is our plan to save the UK’s big retail brands with people-led change — transforming the role they play on the high street, and enabling their people to innovate and collaborate.
Part of that is reinventing a store format fit for the digital age. So we’ve taken Thomas Cook — a hallmark of high streets nationwide — and imagined a store format that remains true to the brand’s heritage, but also meets modern customer needs and serves the local community.
Lollo & Bernie’s Kids Club
In the era of the disrupted travel industry, it’s increasingly rare for someone to visit a high street store to book their annual family holiday. Yet Thomas Cook have stores nationwide.
Offline format regardless, package holidays still sell well. That’s because families have enduring holiday needs: stress-free experience, things for the kids to do, and a chance to try something new within comfortable surrounds.
Welcome to Lollo and Bernie’s Kids Club: where every day can be a holiday for your little ones.
A childcare service bringing a little bit of the holiday experience for kids, at the same time as allowing parents to get on with their days. And it’s as frictionless as a Thomas Cook holiday — book your childcare slot online, see the menu of activities that day. Perhaps it’ll be a Greece-themed day, with music and food from the beautiful islands. Or Spain — or Italy!
This would require conversion of current Thomas Cook branches and hiring of skilled childcare staff. But what could be more charmingly reminiscent of the holiday experience than your kids having a great time?
It’d drive repeat footfall into Thomas Cook stores, and prove that the brand understands families’ needs — it’s much more than a cheap-and-cheerful holiday provider. And it’d fill a much-needed gap in childcare services available for working parents.
The Living High Street isn’t real… yet. It’s our plan that could save big retail brands from a slow and painful decline. It’s grounded in driving the metrics that retailers care about — footfall, basket size and first party data. And it’s all do-able today with off the shelf SaaS (software as a service). But what it does require is a transformation of how retailers think about themselves, how they organise themselves, and how they manage their people.
Please share The Living High Street within your organisation and beyond in the hope that CEO Peter Fankhauser hears about it. Of course we’d love to be part of making this happen — but more than that, we want to see it happen.
Read more:
- What is The Living High Street?
- A day on Living High Street for a working parent, a local business owner, a high street store manager and a local council rep
- How M&S, WHSmith, Zizzi, TSB, 3 and Yodel can empower their people to save the UK high street
- The principles behind Living High Street
- How to make Living High Street real?
Albion is a creative transformation partner. We’ll work alongside your teams, empowering them to work in new ways, design new services, and unlock new growth. If that’s interesting, please get in touch with our CEO: jenny@albion.co.
