Thankfully, having spent her nearly 25-year career in travel solely with Olympic, Kingston couldn’t be better placed to lead the brand into a new era after assuming the top job in January following predecessor Michael Vinales’ departure.
And she’s steadfast in her belief that Olympic has become a more dynamic brand, one that can compete with the very biggest names in the market like Jet2holidays, Tui and easyJet holidays.
“People see Olympic Holidays as this old-style tour operator,” she says. “The challenge is to change this perception, especially among travel agents. They’ve known Olympic for 60 years. – we need to make them realise it’s now a very dynamic business.”
Over the past few years, Kingston believes the operator has honed the art of crafting complex, bespoke holidays and grown its offering beyond just the most popular parts of Greece and Cyprus to include lesser-known destinations like Karpathos, Lefkara and Evia, and more recently, Albania.
She believes it is this expertise that sets the brand apart, and is keen to emphasise this to agents. “We’re a specialist,” she says. “We build our own holidays – we know where agents’ clients want to go, and what they want to do.”
Fresh perspective
Kingston joined Olympic in 2001 as a database assistant and rose through the ranks to the role of operations director. It is these years spent in operations she feels stand her in good stead as the operator’s new managing director.
“I have to step a bit more into the commercial side of things now, liaising closely with our partners,” she explains. “I bring a fresh perspective as I know so much about the business, but I still come at it from a different angle.”
In her new role, she’ll oversee operations, while identifying areas for growth. “Short-term, I’ll be building confidence, and reaffirming how valuable our customers, agents and suppliers are to us,” she says.
“Longer-term, my focus is making sure everything runs smoothly on the ground.”
Price parity promise
Kingston insists agents will remain central to Olympic’s distribution. “Some operators have two separate websites, one for agents and one for clients – Olympic Holidays has one,” she tells TTG. “Price parity is key to maintaining that relationship with all of our agents.”
Olympic has partnered with AI platform QuoteAway to make it easier for agents to tailor holidays to their clients’ precise needs; they can now send quotations without specifying which operator it is they are using.
“What we sell is very flexible,” Kingston says. “The agent can book whatever they want with us as opposed to having everything already packaged. If they want to book a private taxi or a limousine, they do that element of the trip with us.”
So what is Kingston’s message to agents? “Olympic Holidays is a fast-growing company with the needs of both clients and trade partners at heart,” she replies.
“We’re passionate about our destinations, and about building the best holiday for our clients. And when it comes to the trade, price parity is our key tool to keep agents happy.”
