HODGE PODGE: Shifts, Shakeups and Occasional Shaftings in the Tour and Travel Industry

Lindsay Vidrine has been named vice president of destination management for the Oklahoma City CVB. She comes to the post from Saxum, an Oklahoma City-based public relations, digital and advertising agency. Previously, Vidrine had served as director of communications and publications for the Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department.

Brenda Tucker has been appointed director of arts and community relations for the San Francisco Travel Association. Previously, she served at KQED radio and television as executive director of marketing and community relations. Prior to that, Tucker was director of communications for the California College of the Arts.

Choose Chicago has chosen to promote Marc Anderson to the position of chief operating office of the organization. He had been executive vice president of Choose Chicago since 2016. Anderson joined the agency as chief sales officer in 2015. This is Anderson’s second tenure with Choose Chicago. Before a stint of almost 8 years with Peninsula Hotels as a regional director of marketing, Anderson served for almost four-and-a-half years as vice president of sales at the Chicago CVB, the predecessor organization of Choose Chicago.

Suzanne Harvey, the former head of purchasing for Travelopia, has been named as head of product for the dnata-owned Travelbag, whose long-haul product includes the USA. Harvey has more than 15 years travel industry experience, having started her career at First Choice before moving to Sandals to work as a business account manager.

Steven Tuzzolino has been appointed to the new position of sales manager for Quebec at Sunwing. Tuzzolino joins the tour operator from Qatar Airways where, for 7 years, he was regional sales manager for eastern Canada. Previously, he held a number of senior management positions in revenue management for VIA Rail and Air Canada.

Jonathan Whiteley has been appointed to the newly created role of long-haul sales manager for Prestige Holidays. Whiteley will join Prestige after 20 years at rival Canada specialist First Class, where he most recently held the role of national sales manager.

Kevin J. Wright has been named vice president, business development, for Tours4Fu; Handcrafted Vacations, Rezb2b. He joins the company from The Davenport Hotels, Autograph Collection, where he was corporate group sales manager for 2 years. Previously, he worked at the Colorado Tourism Office and NTA.

Matthew Stewart has been being hired as the new sales manager for the Greater Toronto Area and Northern Ontario for Insight Vacations and Luxury Gold. Originally from Australia, Stewart joins the Insight and Luxury Gold team from Topdeck Travel, where he served in Topdeck’s Vancouver office as Western Canada Business Development Manager for five years before being promoted to sales manager for the Americas. Also, after joining the company last year, Paula Rizos has fully taken over all partnership accounts in British Columbia and Yukon as a business development manager.

Greg Takehara, who is chairman of the Tourism Cares board, has taken on the role of CEO, while current Tourism Cares CEO Paula Vlamings will transition to the role of chief impact officer. Vlamings took over as CEO of Tourism Cares from Mike Rea a year ago. Tourism Cares says it realized that more than one leader is needed to effectively grow the group—one to bring new programs to life and another to manage the growth of the organization. A veteran of more than 30 years in tour and travel-related entities, Takehara has served in senior positions at Trip Mate, Aon Affinity/Travel Practice and The Mark Travel Corporation.

Matthew Dakin recently joined Thomas Cook Group Airlines as its new business development manager to its trade sales team. A veteran of some 15 years in the tour and travel industry, Dakin started his career with Thomas Cook as trade relations executive and has since spent time in senior positions at Jet2.com, lastminute.com and First Choice.

Will Waggot has been named group chief of tour operating for Thomas Cook, the UK’s largest tour operator. Waggott, a veteran of 20 years in the tour and travel industry, has been on gardening leave following his previous position with Travelopia, the collection of specialty operators owned by the New York-headquartered private equity firm KKR, which acquired the group from TUI. Waggott started his career at Airtours before joining Thomson in 2001, where he held a number of senior roles during its transition to TUI. (“Garden leave” describes the practice whereby an employee leaving a job – having resigned or otherwise had their employment terminated – is instructed to stay away from work during the notice period, while still remaining on the payroll.)

Also at Thomas Cook: group marketing director Jamie Queen has decided to leave the company at the end of April after five years with the company. His departure comes as Thomas Cook is in the midst of a shake-up of its marketing team. s designed to increase the focus on its growing own-brand hotels and resorts business. The company said It said Queen was leaving to pursue new challenges.

The U.S. Travel Association has announced the hiring of Angie Briggs as vice president of industry relations. Briggs comes to U.S. Travel from Miles Partnership, a well-known consulting agency that specializes in destination and hospitality marketing, where she served as vice president of new business development for the past eight years. Briggs will report to Nan Marchand Beauvois, US Travel’s senior vice president of membership and industry relations.

Wilfred Fan has been named chief commercial officer for Klook, the tours, entertainment and activities and attractions ticketing company. Prior to joining Klook, Fan was a founding member of Agoda, where he introduced a direct hotel contracting strategy that propelled Agoda to become the largest hotel platform in Asia with more than 200,000 properties.

In Brazil, just over a year after his hiring, André Rossi is leaving Travel Master. He was the sales manager for the tour operator in Belo Horizonte. Rossi has 33 years of Tourism and adds tickets for CVC, Flytour Travels (today Flytour MMT) and Visual Tourism. He can be reached at (31) 99185-7801 and andre_vigens@yahoo.com.br.

Kerry Gallagher has been promoted to the newly-created position of marketing director for Gold Medal and Travel 2, starting on April 1. In her new role, she will be responsible for all B2B activity across both operators, including the luxury brands PURE LUXURY and Simply Luxury by Travel 2, and specialist brand Cruise Plus by Travel 2 – with the marketing and partnerships teams from all brands reporting directly into her. Gallagher joined Gold Medal as marketing manager in May 2014.

Correction: In last week’s first edition of INBOUND, we reported that Tresie Benoit has left her position with World2Meet, where she has been senior contracts manager, USA, for more than two-and-a-half years. This report was incorrect. We apologize to Ms. Benoit for having posted this information.