A reorganisation of the trade call centre into a Partner Service Hub for key accounts means four members of staff among 23 – three personal travel experts and a call centre manager – have left following a consultation period. The changes are part of a shake-up of the sales function at the operator.

Seven Kuoni personal travel experts will staff the new Partner Service Hub when it opens on May 1. Beyond key accounts and partner stores, all other travel agent enquiries will be handled by personal travel experts based in Kuoni stores. A central trade operations team, responsible for post-booking and all administrative work with the non-partner service accounts, will support them.

The operator said it had taken steps to minimise the number of redundancies and had re-employed the remainder of the staff in other areas of the business.

In another key part of the restructuring, Kuoni has appointed Brad Bennetts to the new post of national sales manager, focusing on non-partner travel agent relationships. Bennetts will report to sales director Helen Roberts, who created the new role as part of her reorganisation of Kuoni’s trade sales function.

Bennetts joins on April 22 from Africa Collection, where he was sales manager for more than 10 years. Prior to that he managed a luxury lodge in South Africa.