Contiki, the venerable youth operator owned by The Travel Corporation, unveiled a restructuring under which its U.S. sales team will be dropped and its products will be sold by sales executives from sister company Trafalgar. In a message to Contiki's partners, President Greg Fischbein said that effective June 1, Mark Junette, vice president of sales, will leave the company. "A consummate professional, Mark's contributions, efforts and stewardship of the Contiki sales team have been critical to our success," Fischbein said in his message to partners. "I am certain you will all join me in wishing him continued success in his future endeavors."
In conjunction with that announcement, Michelle Murray, currently Contiki's director of marketing, will assume the new title of director of marketing and key accounts effective June 1. "In addition, Contiki will undergo a strategic realignment rolling our current sales force up into our sister brand, Trafalgar," Fischbein said. "This will greatly increase Contiki's strength and presence in the marketplace while boosting service levels for travel agent customers. Over the coming months Contiki and Trafalgar will begin the field sales transition."
Contiki had a dedicated sales force of five people, while Trafalgar has 15. "With this change, Contiki has effectively tripled its 'brandwidth' within the agent community," Fischbein said. "The goal is to further increase the level of agent support for Contiki products by increasing the size of our sales force. The Trafalgar field team will now incorporate the Contiki product line into all their sales activities."
Fischbein stressed that the Contiki-Trafalgar alliance is only at the field level. All other Contiki trade sales operations remain with Contiki. He said Contiki and Trafalgar remain separate business units within The Travel Corporation, each with executive sales, marketing, and reservations departments that will continue to serve and support trade partners with specialized initiatives that speak to their respective demographics. Contiki also remains firmly in support of the trade, according to Fischbein.
In a separate interview, Richard Launder, president of The Travel Corporation U.S.A., holding company for all of The Travel Corporation's U.S. units, including Trafalgar, Insight, Contiki, Uniworld, Brendan, Lion World and African Travel Inc., confirmed the Contiki move, but said it is not true that African Travel Inc.'s sales will be placed with Trafalgar as well. Last week African Travel Managing Director Dave Herbert resigned in order to find other entrepreneurial opportunities in travel. There had been speculation about what this would mean for African Travel, but Launder said the tour operator would remain a separate unit and is actively looking for a new managing director. Anne Bellamy remains as president of African Travel. For more information on Contiki, visit www.contiki.com.
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