New product development in Thomson Holidays UK: The use of research

New product development in the holiday business can be seen either as the continuation of an annual cycle or in the more classic sense as product innovation. The paper is concerned with the latter and describes the varying roles of market development and contribution of research to new package holiday developments at Thomson Holidays. It is shown that, unlike the field of fast-moving consumer goods, the live product test, without any kind of pre-launch testing, is often a more appropriate and cost-effective use of research time and funding.