Forget ecommerce and m-commerce. The latest buzzword is t-commerce - services booked and paid for through your television.

Travel agent Thomas Cook is launching its products over digital interactive television, allowing customers who don't have access to PCs to book their holidays online.

The company is among the first in the UK - together with Woolworths, Dominos, Abbey National, Ladbrokes, Hertz, Loot and WH Smith - to launch its website 'live' using cable firm Telewest's digital interactive platform.

Viewers will receive interactive video presentations of Thomas Cook products designed by Pagoda Consulting.

Customers have been able to search, book and pay for holidays online since February. By using digital television, however, customers benefit from better picture quality and enhanced features, as well as avoiding the need for a PC.

Jon Ardron, managing director of ebusiness at Thomas Cook, said: "The launch of our products on web television is part of our multi-channel platform to reach customers including call centres, retail shops, the internet, Wap (wireless application protocol) phones and interactive channels such as web television."

"The data we have available shows that digital television users are confident in using wireless electronic programming devices. [During] the trial period of using web television to sell our products, we found that the average purchase cost when customers use interactive channels is £1200, compared with £400 via other channels," he added.

Mike Beeston, UK managing director at ebusiness consultant Razorfish, said: "The most important thing to work out is how the different communications channels relate to each other. Do you attract customers through television, retain them through wireless, and then get them to buy through the web? How does the whole equal more than the sum of the parts?"

UK market research firm Mintel estimated that the UK's TV shopping revenue will be £550m in 2002.

First published in Computing