Former Comtec client relationship director Neil Herbert has joined Mobiletrails, the company behind mobile phone information tool Travel Buddy.
Herbert, who left Comtec two months ago following the centralisation of the role to its HQ in Wales, has joined as sales, marketing and distribution director. He is tasked with rolling out the product to the trade following an 18 month exclusive contract with TUI Travel.
Travel Buddy is a service which allows holidaymakers to receive texts pre, during and post their trips on anything from weather, travel news, excursions, airport transfers and emergency information.
TUI invested in the company at launch and rolled out the Travel Buddy service to its customers on an exclusive basis. The company is now hoping to expand by securing contracts with tour operators, travel agents and airlines globally.
Already the company has struck an initial deal with ABTA to endorse a white-label Travel Buddy product for its members and this week it announced a deal with The Co-operative Travel Group. First Choice and Thomson have already signed up to the product.
Herbert, who also previously worked for Holiday Taxis and Holiday Extras, said: “We want to roll this out to the rest of the trade. We have six or seven different products including a crisis management tool and this enables companies to communicate with their customers quickly by using SMS texts.”