OTA Blue Bay Travel has appointed a new managing director.
Maxine Rowland has been promoted to the newly-created position, from general manager.
Rowland joined Blue Bay in 2012, with a career spanning 25 years. Her roles include regional manager and latterly commercial manager for Co-operative Travel Trading Group.
Blue Bay has seen an exponential level of growth over the last two years, including a £6.5 million investment from private equity firm LDC.
The management team has expanded staff levels in all areas of the business, tripling the size of the office space, investing in new intelligent marketing tools, launching an online booking platform and a new luxury brand as well as introducing a number of new channels to market.
“I am delighted to have been recognised in this way and will work tirelessly with our talented internal team and fantastic range of supply partners to make Blue Bay Travel the operator of choice for long haul travel,” said Rowland.
“I truly believe that once customers have discovered Blue Bay they find it impossible to find a competitor to rival our value, experience and service. My aim is to communicate this unique offering to a much wider audience.”
Blue Bay’s key objective is to expand and develop the online channel and drive growth through technology.
Blue Bay chief executive Stuart Wilson said: “Maxine is the perfect choice to drive Blue Bay forward to the next level, she was instrumental in building the foundations for growth across the business during 2017.
“Key areas for the coming financial year are product, marketing and online amplification – we are driving the breadth of our product offering in core geographical areas, expanding into other destinations and looking to offer inspirational ideas to our customers.
“We will continue to look after our existing customers in the way they have become accustomed, with our expert team of personal travel advisors and homeworkers – whose knowledge of our specialist destinations and product is second to none.”