Dave Callan and Victoria Wilson joined the business earlier this month from outside the travel sector following a period of “record-breaking” sales for the homeworking specialist.
March 2022 saw Travel Counsellors’ most successful sales month since the onset of the pandemic, with UK leisure bookings increasing 50% and corporate sales up 20% on 2019 levels.
The company has also claimed to have secured nearly £60m worth of departures for 2023 – an increase of 63% on sales generated for 2020 departures at the same time in 2019.
Callan, Travel Counsellors’ new customer director, takes up the newly created position having joined from professional cycling team Ineos, formerly Team Sky, as chief marketing officer.
He will be in charge of “developing, leading and driving” Travel Counsellors’ brand and brand proposition.
Wilson arrives at Travel Counsellors from a financial services background, with her most recent position at pension and investment specialist Royal London seeing her lead colleague experience and pandemic response.
As chief people officer, Travel Counsellors said she would “play a critical role”, in its approach to talent acquisition, learning and development and colleague experience, as well as internal communications and diversity and inclusion.
Steve Byrne, Travel Counsellors chief executive, said Wilson’s appointment would help the company “build our leadership capacity and capability” to support its next phase of growth.
Byrne added Callan would “add massive value” to Travel Counsellors and its members “attracting more talented professionals and customers into our community”.
