Biggest European tourism player TUI engages itself strongly in improving its partner hotels' quality; the brand new programme is named TUI Quality Support and means individually examining and counselling of associated properties.

"Clever hoteliers really do search for consultancy", TUI Germany chairman Dr. Volker Boettcher convincingly stated on the ITB Berlin.

The recently installed tool in quality control is resting on a yet old but stable grounding: The TUI Holly, a quality seal awarded due to intense and regular guest surveys. It has been established in 1993 and now is accepted widely by employees and partners.

Although at the very beginning there had been some certain resistence against TUI's plans to publish the guest's mercyless marks situated directly in the catalogue, Dr. Boettcher admitted smilingly. But since 2004 each hotel has its vote, and the Holly as a desired award sometimes too.

Nowadays many hoteliers contracted with TUI appreciate the quality control and gain benefit from the unbribable watch at weak points in their services. In the meantime the linked properties' managers proactively call Hannover headquarters demanding hastily for a copy just before the printing of next season's catalogues to take their lessons out of it as soon as possible. This inspired TUI managers to create the new business segment. Accidentally it is in the right place for helping recover from the current crisis.

Already 120 properties have applied for the programme, enthusiastic with the results from a test phase. The Hotel Kaya Select in Belek/Turkey was the pilot place and shows remarkable improvement: Due to TUI Quality Support the customer satisfaction grew from 79 per cent in 2007 to 91 per cent in 2008.

The overall complaint quotient had been reduced from eleven to four per cent. And furthermore, the booking rate for summer season 2009 increased around eleven per cent.

"So it is easy to conclude that improving quality does give benefit not only to us, but also to the hotelier", Dr. Boettcher summarized. Particularly in the long run the work on quality pays back. However TUI Quality Support is not for free, the price is not staggered in relation to the hotel's size or financial volume. The consultancy in fact is cheaper than competing offers, the TUI manager said.

The programme is arranged in a modular mode consisting of five subprogramm which can be ordered separately: The TUI Holly Blitzanalyse (Lightning Analysis), the TUI Lightning Benchmarking, TUI Guest Satisfaction Analysis, TUI Complaint Analysis and TUI Mystery Check.