When Contiki president Melissa da Silva officially takes
over as president of Trafalgar USA this week, there likely won't be a lot of
drastic changes, at least not right away.
"I'm very fortunate that I'm walking into a situation
where nothing is broken," da Silva said last week after Trafalgar's parent
company, the Travel Corp., announced that Trafalgar's longtime leader, Paul
Wiseman, was relinquishing the title of president of Trafalgar USA and Brendan
Vacations. Da Silva was named to replace him just as Trafalgar is coming off one
of its strongest years.
Melissa da Silva
Wiseman, who led Trafalgar for the past decade, is leaving
to start his own training business, focused on leadership and development. He
will remain with Trafalgar until July 28 and will kick off his business venture
on July 31.
"Every conference I've been to in the last two or three
years, there's been more and more comments [from agents saying], 'We don't want
as much product training as we do want solutions to how we can grow our
business, solutions to how we can better sell products,'" Wiseman said. "It'll
be my own company ... and my first client is one that I know particularly well:
Trafalgar."
Wiseman said that for the foreseeable future, his primary
focus will be on working with Travel Corp. brands and their retail partners.
In the meantime, he will be on hand to help da Silva
transition into her new role from that of president of Contiki Holidays USA, a
brand focused on the 18-to-35-year-old market. The Travel Corp. stated that
Silva's successor at Contiki will be announced shortly.
Asked if she planned to bring any of the technology or
marketing prowess she gained at Contiki into Trafalgar's operations, da Silva
said one of the main carryovers from Contiki will be content-led marketing and
the creation of inspiring stories to help persuade travelers to book with
Trafalgar.
"I think [we and] our trade partners tend to fall back
on the rational: What's included on your trip; what are you going to see; where
are you going to go?" da Silva said. "But that's not why people buy
travel necessarily.
"They buy it for that emotional experience. We know
that they're experiencing it when they travel on our product, but they don't
always know that that's what they're going to get when they buy it. We want to
make sure that they know upfront that these are the amazing experiences and
memories that they are going to have."
As for potential growth opportunities for Trafalgar, da
Silva said, "We're seeing great growth throughout Europe. One of our
opportunities could be some of the other areas where we have trips."
For example, she said she sees potential for Trafalgar to
grow its exotic destination portfolio.
As da Silva takes the helm, she recognized that Trafalgar is
not without its challenges. She said she's aware that the tour operator faces
stiff competition from the cruise industry and from the FIT travel space.