Celebrating Travel Together

Okay, here’s your trivia question for today … both Thomas Cook and Cox & Kings have been around for 100 years … can you name another?

Well, if you said Collette you’d be spot on and in 2018, the Rhode Island-headquartered tour company will be pulling out all the stops as it celebrates its a hundred years in the tour operating business.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but that’s a long, long time.

Yet as Ron Lonsdale, director of strategic partnerships – Canada for Collette, sees it, the company’s longevity is due to the quality of its leadership team and the fact that the company has constantly transformed itself by keeping up with the changing trends, wants and needs of the travel marketplace.

Lonsdale welcomed a stellar group of Collette’s partners – tour operators, airline reps and travel agents – at a get-together in downtown Toronto last night, telling them that with their support the company has had its best year ever out of Canada in 2017 and the forecast for 2018 points to that trend continuing.

He also noted that with the support of the agency community here, Collette moved into second spot in this year’s Agents’ Choice Awards in the favourite motorcoach category.

The evening also featured an overview of Collette’s product and how it differed from the competition; available agent incentives and training; a look at Collette Cares and the good work it was doing; and lots, lots more.

Watch for more on Collette in upcoming issues of Travel Courier and Canadian Travel Press.

In the photo: Ready to welcome their guests in Toronto last night are (l-r) Collette’s Christian Leibl-Cote, Ron Lonsdale and Brett Walker.