Collette Rebrands, Unveils New Brand, Logo and Tagline

Collette, the Pawtucket, R.I.-based tour operator, rebranded, with a new, shorter name, a new logo and a tagline.

Collette was founded in 1918 as Collette Tours. In 2001 the company changed its name to Collette Vacations. Now the company is dropping the word “vacations” from its name and will henceforth just be “Collette,” with a tagline: “Guided by Travel.”

Kristine Chochrek, Collette’s vice president of marketing and advertising, calls the change a “new evolution.” The new logo, in simple and bold lower case letters, she said, is a “more modern, friendly, updated style.”

In continuity with the previous logo, the company stayed with green.

“Collette has a long-standing history,” said Chochrek. “We kept with the green. We’ve always identified with green. And we’re keeping the globe as an important aspect identifying that we’re a travel company.”

The word “vacations” was dropped, Chochrek said, because it did not seem to fit the product.

“What we’re really selling is a total experience of what travel means to people in life,” she said. “The experiences people have on our tours go beyond just a vacation. There’s a social aspect, who they are traveling with, the connections they make. So that was the goal in evolving the brand.”

In talking about the product, Chochrek said, the company has evolved its language. “In talking about the tour, we’re shifting away from the term ‘escorted tour.’ We like ‘guided travel’ to showcase the added value that you get. It’s also a spin on what we do at Collette. Everyone at Collette throughout the entire company has such passion for what we do. So we’re guided by travel.”

The changing branding reflects the evolving tour product as tour operators respond to the changing preferences of their customers.

“We’re always looking for what consumers want out of a travel experience and we’re making sure we are delivering that,” said Chochrek. “They want cultural immersion, experiences they couldn’t get on their own, like traveling the streets of foreign city and getting to know local people at a hosted dinner.

We can provide those experiences, but today people want more flexibility. So as we develop new products, we look at how we can balance that. We provide all the must-sees, we’re always going to deliver on those. But we also want to deliver on all the other experiences.”

Collette’s rebranding comes as the company finishes 2013 with a 12 percent annual growth rate and is tracking at a 37 percent increase so far in 2014.