This Week... Thomas Cook moving forward, Cruise Answers appoints new director and Google and the Science Museum unite.

It’s the last week before Christmas and many of you are winding down and getting ready for the upcoming celebrations. We’ve had a look through all the top news in both travel and technology this week for the final time this year to make sure you are as up to date as possible before a well deserved break. Read on to find out about Thomas Cook’s new strategy, EU laws on cookie use as well as what we got up to at our Christmas party.

CWT Digital News:

Big 10: Our Big 10 competition opened up last week for your chance to win a 12 month online marketing strategy for your company. You have up until the 3rd January to apply so if you’re looking for some direction in 2012 then apply now for your chance to win this fantastic prize.

CWT Digital Party: As we mentioned last week, it was our Christmas party last Friday and the team headed off to the Royal Pavilion Ice Rink to show off our moves. We then headed off for a lovely meal and had a ‘few’ drinks to celebrate. It was a great party and we all had a brilliant time, we’ll upload some pictures to our Facebook page shortly.

Travel News:

Thomas Cook moving on-16th Dec- Still heavily featured in the news last week, Thomas Cook announced its new strategy and decision to close 200 stores as part of it’s plans to cut costs. Ian Ailles, Cook’s UK managing director, insisted that the shops being closed were ones that had been losing money ‘for years’. Ailles also commented on mistakes that Cook had made revealing that ‘ lack of yield management and no coherent pricing strategy’ resulted in a huge divide in online and in-store prices, with online prices being substantially lower than shops. Cook have released their new strategy and plan to increase efforts into online sales which for this year had been surprisingly low at only 25% of overall sales. Next year will be the true test for Thomas Cook to see if this traditional brand can adapt to the modern market.

Cruise News: Cruise Answers takes on new director-16th December- Cruise Answers have appointed a new director in the shape of Tony Youster, former co-founder of Ideal Cruising. As director of cruise, Youster will be looking to expand Cruise Answers into ‘one of the largest and most profitable cruise specialists in the UK’. Cruise Answers won a full cruise site with CWT Digital’s Big 10 earlier this year and are evidently looking to expand the business further with this new recruitment, we wish them the best of luck!

Technology News:

EU cookie laws to come into place-18th December- An article in the Guardian yesterday discussed how EU regulations on cookie use have tightened this year and how it is now required that anyone using cookies must notify the user and give clear indications as to why these cookies are being used as well as gain permission from that user. The UK government have introduced a year long ‘lead in period’ in which UK sites should start to introduce these regulations to their site. Halfway into this period and it would appear that the majority of sites are either unaware or are simply ignoring this new requirement as a recent survey indicated that several sites ‘haven’t yet appreciated what the new rules require’.

Google teams up with Science Museum for new exhibitions-17th December- Google have funded 2 exhibitions at the Science Museum in London which explore the history of computing. The exhibitions are part of Google’s initiative to create interest in computing technologies amongst youngsters. By hosting these exhibitions, Google are aiming to create the next generation of scientists. The first exhibition starts in June next year and celebrates the life of Alan Turing, the English mathematician, who is considered the ‘father’ of computing.

That’s all the top picks from us this year. We hope you’ve enjoyed all of our updates so far. Do remember to catch up with us over Facebook and Twitter for all the latest news in the follow up to Christmas.

Have a lovely Christmas and New Year from the CWT Digital team.