Kimberly Dunnegan recently joined the group sales team at Visit Huntington Beach. Dunnegan is an experienced sales leader in the hospitality and tourism industries. She joins the Huntington Beach team from Visit Newport Beach where she was national account director. Prior to this, she held the senior sales positions at Fashion Island Hotel Newport Beach and at Marriott.
Well known tourism industry public relations pro Shoshana Puccia has joined the Duarte Chamber of Commerce in California as the organization’s executive director/CEO. Previously, she was a part of Roseworks Marketing & Le Bridge agency, operating out of Pasadena, California. Prior to that, Puccia was senior marketing manager for Macerich, a leader owner, operator and developer of mixed-used shopping malls.
Elliott Stevens has been named vice president, sales, for Teplis Travel, He comes to the position with almost 20 years of corporate travel experience including hotel management at Hyatt Hotels followed by multiple leadership roles while at Frosch International Travel. Frosch, which is ranked No. 13 in the United States on the Travel Weekly Power List of agencies that do business in the country. Stevens brings experience in national and global managed travel programs. For more than nine years, he was director, sales & global account management for Frosch.
Martin Katz will be leaving the FTI Group at the end November. The long-time head of the areas of personal travel, city trips, events and golf by the German tour operator is retiring. Katz, 65, the closes out his career after serving FTI as group destination director for more than eight years. The Strategic Destination Officer for the Self Drive, City Breaks and Golf by FTI segments, Katz has reached retirement age and will be retiring at the end of November. Katrin Schrader, who has worked for the Munich tour operator for more than a decade, the last two as senior process & project coordination manager source markets— FTI GROUP Greater Munich Metropolitan Area—is succeeding Katz.
At the Montreal-based carrier Air Transat and its holiday division, Cyril Cousin has been appointed director for France, Benelux, Switzerland and Germany. For Cousin, this is a return to the Transat group, after leaving it in 2016 when Transat France was acquired by the TUI group. He will report to Xavier Szwengler, vice president of marketing and international markets for Air Transat. Cousin began his career at Transat in 2006 as sales and marketing director of Transat Vacations and its airline Air Transat until 2010, when he joined Look Voyages as sales and marketing director. In 2013, when the two brands merged and Transat France, the third largest French tour operator, he became Director of Distribution and took charge of all B2C activities for individual sales.
Luiz Teixeira, GOL Airlines country manager for the USA, Central America and the Caribbean, has returned to Brazil, where he will still be working on the carrier’s international objectives. He had been based in Orlando since joining Gol in the summer of 2019. Previously, Teixeira served more than 24 years with Delta Air Lines, operating primarily out of São Paulo.
CPP Group UK has announced the appointment of Anna Sant as its new commercial development manager for its Parametrics insurance offerings after a period of growth for the Leeds-based InsurTech. Sant will work closely with the sales, business development and CPP Blink Parametric teams, as well as CPP UK’s parent business CPP Group. Anna joins CPP UK as a travel insurance expert with significant contacts and experience. She previously spent seventeen years at Moneysupermarket Group, where she rose to the senior management team responsible for the travel insurance distribution and partners over the course of her tenure.
Delta Air Lines has appointed Nicolas Ferri as vice president – Europe, Middle East, Africa and India, effective Nov. 1. Based in Paris, Ferri will oversee key strategic commercial and customer experience initiatives in the region, working closely with Delta’s European joint venture partners Air France, KLM and Virgin Atlantic, as the airline focuses on rebuilding its trans-Atlantic network. Prior to his appointment, Ferri has served as chief commercial officer at Delta’s partner, Aeromexico, since August 2019. In this role, he led Aeromexico’s revenue management, network planning, corporate strategy, distribution, global sales, alliances, e-commerce, customer care and loyalty functions. Ferri has been with Delta for 10 years, serving in leadership roles across the airline’s alliances, international and commercial divisions. In addition to his role with Aeromexico, previous roles with Delta include vice president – Latin America and vice president alliances, Americas.
Internova Travel Group, ranked No. 7 in Travel Weekly’s 2021 Power List of travel agencies and one of the largest travel companies in the world, has appointed two new vice presidents to the partner relations team that oversees hotel and in-country partnerships. Haisley Smith (l.) joins as vice president, program development, and Pam Meehan has been promoted to vice president, hotel programs. Both will report to Albert Herrera, executive vice president, partner relations at Internova.
Smith joins Internova from luxury leisure travel agency Brownell where she served as Vice President, Marketing and Business Development. She was responsible for developing and launching successful partnership programs for tour operators, destination management companies and hotels. Meehan previously served as senior director of hotel programs for Internova. For the past 10 years, she has been entrusted with managing the company’s highest-producing hotel partnerships, serving as the executive liaison between the leadership team and the program’s global hotel brand leaders.
Antonio Fellino has been appointed managing director of dnata Travel Group-owned Travel Republic, having served in the role on an interim basis since January 2019. Fellino has previously worked in various leadership roles with dnata after he joined the firm from Thomas Cook in 2014, after spending five years at the tour operator as head of ecommerce. As vice-president of B2C ecommerce and retail between 2016-2019, he led the transformation of dnata Travel leisure in the UAE into a fully integrated business that encompassed both ecommerce and digital businesses.
Mario Habig has joined the German tour operator FTI, where he will be responsible for destination management for the FTI Group’s own agencies with around 40 agencies in 18 countries. Habig has some 20 years of experience in tourism and has extensive expertise in destination management. At the TUI Group, he was responsible for the operative management of the agency in India as well as supra-regional responsibility for the DMCs on the Indian subcontinent, in Africa and in the Indian Ocean.
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Job Postings
From SearchWide Global:
—Visit Denver is seeking to hire a new vice president of tourism. More details here.
—Visit Santa Cruz is searching for a new CEO/Executive Vice President. More details here.
—The Little Rock Convention & Visitors Bureau has an opening for a director of marketing. More details here.
—There is an opening for the position of president & CEO at Visit Fort Wayne. More details here.
—The North Lake Tahoe Resort Association is looking for a CEO. More details here.
—Visit Savanah has an opening for a vice president of communications & marketing. More details here.
—Destinations International is searching for a vice president of equity, diversity & inclusion. More details here.
—Valdosta-Lowndes Co. Conference & Tourism Authority has an opening for a catering and sales director. More details here.
—The City of Tacoma has an opening for a director of venue & events. More details here.
—Visit Dana Point is looking for an executive director. More details here.
—Visit Milwaukee is searching for a vice president of marketing and communications. More details here.
—Discover The Palm Beaches is looking for an associate vice president of group sales. More details here.
—Discover The Palm Beaches is searching for a director of events, tradeshow & strategic sales partnerships. More details here.
—The Petoskey Area Visitors Bureau, which represents an area of coastal communities in northwestern Michigan, has an opening for a new executive director. More details here.
—The Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau is seeking a senior vice president of convention sales. More details here.
—The Colorado Office of Economic Development & International Trade is searching for a director of marketing and communications. More details here.
—Freeman is searching for a vice president, national graphics. More details here.
—In the Charlotte/Concord area of North Carolina, Great Wolf Resorts has an opening for a director of sales and catering. For details, click here
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From LinkedIn Jobs: Known to many across the board in the travel and tourism industry, the LinkedIn list (click here) has numerous job opportunities posted. Following is a brief sample of some of those jobs currently listed.
—City Experiences has an opening for a national associate director of tourism. More details here.
—Traders Village, a Houston area amusement park, is looking to hire someone for its tourism sector. More details here.
Las Vegas-based Legends, which focuses on premium experiences for its customers, has an opening for a groups and tourism manager. More details here.
—Delta Air Lines is searching for a specialist, reservations strategic initiatives. More details here.
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From Indeed.com: We’ve taken a look at this site (click here) which says that it has hundreds of new jobs listed, including a fair number in the travel, tourism and related industries. A sampler of what to expect is below.
—Grand Circle LLC, a Boston-based travel company that offers all-inclusive package tours to its customers, is looking for an inbound travel sales counselor. More details here.
—The city of Eustis, Florida is looking for an events & tourism manager. Salary range is $50,361 to $75,670 a year. More details here.
—The Philadelphia office of Tiquets, the global ticket booking company for attractions, is looking for a U.S.-based supply coordinator (the company is headquartered in the Netherlands). More details here.
—The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority is looking for a vice president of guest experience. The salary range is $130,000 – $157,000 a year: More details here.
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Have a job to offer in the travel and tourism industry? Let us know and we’ll post your notice—no cost to you. Email tom@tomberrigan.com
