Totaljourney launches on-line with Fitch brand

Fitch has created the brand identity and website for Totaljourney, the Web-based UK travel-planning and booking operation, which launches on 22 June.

It won the £250 000 job covering brand proposition, Web design and production following a credentials pitch last May against Razorfish, Proximity UK and Smith & Partners.

Totaljourney is a joint venture between Railtrack Travel and FirstGroup that was set up in January. It claims to offer the first integrated on-line travel planning and booking service dedicated to the UK.

It already manages and operates Railtrack’s on-line time-table, www.railtrack.co.uk. From July visitors to the Railtrack site, which is claimed to be the second most popular travel website in the UK, attracting 500 000 visitors a week, will be transferred to Totaljourney’s site, www.totaljourney.co.uk.

In addition to train times and fare information, the site will offer on-line booking facilities for rail and leisure activities, and information on towns, regions, local listings, maps and weather.

In its first three months it will phase in search and booking facilities covering all main forms of transport. In July it will add hotels. Flights will be added the following month and car hire in September. Fitch will be involved in implementing the facilities.

Fitch was briefed to create a brand identity that was unique and that stood alone from Railtrack, according to Totaljourney marketing manager Tim Hayne. “We see [the brand] as a lifestyle enabler, something that enables people to use their time more effectively,” he says.

The consultancy’s brief for the website was to make it accessible and uncomplicated. “We didn’t want people to have go through too many steps [to use the site], we want to empower them and make them take control,” adds Hayne.

The site uses technology developed by Equant that enables users to pay for all purchases, whether travel or leisure, or a combination of both, in a single transaction.

Future developments, such as the addition of corporate accounts and the facility to purchase season tickets, are planned. But no decision has yet been made on how the design side will be handled.