CIE Invests in the Future

Elizabeth Crabill was appointed CEO of CIE Tours in 2016, taking the reins from Brian Stack, who had led the company for 26 years. She formerly served as vice president of sales and marketing for Lindblad Expeditions, president of Travel Bound and vice president of sales for GTA Americas.

We sat down with Crabill to discuss the company’s continued growth in Ireland, a new Winter Collection of tours, and new programs geared toward the family and luxury travel markets.

Vacation Agent: Can you provide us with an update after your first year-and-a-half as CEO?

Elizabeth Crabill: There were many good aspects to the company that I was fortunate to inherit, so that’s great. Now we’ve had a year-and-a-half to start investing in future opportunities for CIE Tours. As the expert in Ireland and Britain, we have found a lot of opportunities. As a company, we have been experiencing consistent single-digit growth over the years. CIE has been around 85 years has grown quite a lot in that time.

Now we actually are watching the interest and the intent of going to Ireland go through the roof in the U.S.

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VA: What kind of growth are we talking about?

EC: Tourism Ireland has been tracking double-digit growth from the U.S. to Ireland for several years running, and we’re still seeing 18 percent growth this year alone. CIE Tours is a big part of that. It is the biggest buyer of leisure hotel rooms in Ireland.

And we see that growing interest in Ireland completely matches our interest in investing in new tools and new technology to put CIE Tours front and center for everybody.

VA: What types of tools is CIE investing in?

EC: We are making investments in the digital side of the business, and that’s from the website all the way to communications tools, [including] database systems that [enable us to] have conversations with our travel agents and customers to drive further awareness of CIE Tours.

The one thing CIE Tours is known for is an excellent product. Our tours are very highly rated. We get about 35,000 comments cards a year from our guests, and we have comments on every aspect of our tours. Overall, our tours are consistently rated at 95 percent satisfaction year after year. That’s really great. And we have that feedback to know that our product is excellent and is a product that people come home and recommend to their friends and family.

That helps the travel agent and that helps us.

Even though we have an excellent product, we are investing and expanding that portfolio and are looking at different kinds of tours and vacation experiences that any U.S. traveler going to Ireland or Britain would want to have. We want them to have it with CIE Tours.

VA: Can you give us an update on some of your new products?

EC: We have put together a slate of family tours for 2018. They take our core product—which is an excellent product—and expand it to cater to multigenerational travel groups.

The second thing we are launching for 2018 is a Winter Collection. With the incredible growth in Ireland tourism overall, one of the best ways people can get the best value is to try traveling at different times of the year.

The Winter Collection has getaways to Ireland and Scotland, and city stays in Dublin and Edinburgh. It also includes an Edinburgh New Year’s tour. You have the option of a four-day to seven-day tour. Winter is a great time to do Ireland and Scotland, and a good way to avoid some of the crowds. The weather in winter is relatively mild, more so than in the northeastern U.S. or Canada.

The third new thing is our luxury product, [which represents] another segment we’ve seen a lot of growth in. Generally, our entire product is four and five star. But we have seen that the five-star category has incredible growth, so we are adding a five-star tour in Scotland. And we are enhancing our five-star product in Ireland by adding more castle stays on some of our tours.

Castles are hot now. Everyone wants that experience when they come to Ireland.

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And finally, for the client who wants a more hands-on experience, we have private-driver programs, which have seen 65 percent growth. A group of up to nine people can have a private driver and make their experience very specialized and very intimate.

We are offering more activities for luxury clients. Luxury clients are demanding more all the time, [especially] new options to [create] unique stays. The product in Ireland is amazing. The castles are enchanting, and you have the opportunity to have a tour that includes five-star resorts and castles, and possibly do it with a private driver.