Teletext Holidays will unveil a radically different website this week as well as its first foray into iPad appland and a web TV service.
The company says the trio of new services are part of a major repositioning of the brand in an attempt to rid itself of a reputation around the old-fashioned, analogue TV directory service which has dogged it for decades.
Central to the new suite of products is, what it claims, a new way of searching of products on its system, based on inspiration rather than just date and destination.
The new website allows users to search by travel product type (holiday, flight, hotel) coupled with budget, whether the user is part of a group, family, single or couple, and the ability to search for deals on a map.
Managing director Vicky Sanders says the new approach was led in part by research which indicated 80% of visitors to the site actually had no idea where they wanted to go.
The new design and user experience came before the technology to support it, rather than the other way round, Sanders says. The site was created by the London-based Reading Room agency.
Product suppliers will continue to use the existing Traveltek back-end to upload offers or, alternatively, through an XML feed direct into the system, while content and product information will be fed by Amadeus-owned TravelTainment.
The iPad app (free) will use the same look and feel from the new website, but will be remodelled to showcase what Sanders calls the "inspiration" element of the brand, featuring such tools as a large globe so users can pinpoint destinations and available offers.
Frommers events and destination content will also be streamed into the iPad app version.
The "considerable investment" in the overhaul of the Teletext Holidays brand comes as parent company DMGT (publisher of the Daily Mail newspaper) prepares at the end of the year to turn off the old analogue TV system used by Teletext Holidays.
A web TV version of Teletext Holidays is also being pushed out this week, once again featuring much of the same functionality as the main website.
The overhaul does not end there - Teletext holiday rental brand VillaRenters will also get an iPhone app shortly and the entire effort will be supported by a major marketing campaign in the new year.
UK terrestrial TV channels, press and online will feature in two waves of activity, with radio advertising expected in the second wave in the summer of 2011.
However, a previous proposal to develop services for Teletext Holidays for Microsoft Surface tables appears to have fallen by the wayside.