Rebranding a Legacy Travel Brand for Digital Growth

How First Choice Increased Conversions by 65% with a Gen Z-Focused Digital Rebrand

At a glance

The Challenge

Declining sales and relevance in a fast-moving OTA market; poor Gen Z engagement and outdated digital product experience.

The Solution

Defined product-market fit, built outcome-driven product teams, developed and aligned digital strategy, led full-site rebrand across digital functions, embedded discovery and OKRs.

Outcomes Delivered

👥

📈

5,000+ increase in weekly traffic

🧭

🚀

Facing competitive pressure from OTAs and a shifting audience base, First Choice needed to reinvent itself as a digital-first travel brand. Through discovery, strategy alignment, and organisational transformation, the business rebranded successfully and saw a 65% lift in conversion rates, plus renewed engagement from its target demographic.

65% increase in conversion

Product vision adopted by C-suite

Modern product culture established across teams

First Choice, part of the TUI Group, historically offered package holidays under a traditional travel model. With Gen Z focused growth goals, they pivoted to an OTA style business, selling third party travel products on commission.

The Challenge

The Approach

Traffic, sales, and engagement were in year on year decline. The brand lacked a clear digital proposition, was missing product-market fit for new audiences, and had fragmented delivery practices across teams.

  • Led product discovery to validate features and strategic propositions

  • Developed and delivered the digital product strategy and roadmap

  • Formed and coached product teams with embedded ways of working

  • Defined OKRs, prioritisation frameworks, and product lifecycle stages

  • Presented strategy to exec stakeholders for alignment and adoption

  • Coordinated rebrand across design, content, marketing, commercial, and engineering

True cross-functional delivery

  • 4 cross-functional product teams established

  • Weekly outcome-based reporting integrated into routines

  • SEO uplift and CRO experiments increased organic traffic

  • MVP thinking embedded into all major product initiatives

  • Competitor and customer insights shaped roadmap direction

The Results

  • 🔺 65% increase in conversion

  • 📈 Reversed decline in traffic (5,000+ net new weekly visits)

  • 💬 Improved customer satisfaction post-launch

  • 🧭 Strategy and roadmap adopted by C-suite

  • 🔁 Product-led ways of working scaled across departments

By combining strategic clarity with hands-on delivery, this rebrand repositioned First Choice to capture a younger audience and compete effectively in a modern OTA landscape.

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From Hypothesis to MVP: Building the Case for a £14.1M Product Opportunity