The Guild of Travel Management Companies (GTMC) has appointed Adrian Parkes as new chief executive to take over from Paul Wait.
Parkes will join from Portman/Clarity Travel, the UK’s seventh largest travel management company (TMC), where he is director of product and marketing.
Wait will leave the GTMC in July after heading the industry association since January 2013.
He will join Southall Travel as chief operating officer, running the company’s corporate travel business Applehouse Travel. Wait previously held senior roles at Virgin Atlantic and American Express.
In an emotional farewell at the GTMC conference in Monaco, Wait said: “It has been a real honour. I ask you to give the next chief executive as much support as you have given me.”
Parkes has been with Portman Travel since 2010. He was previously vice-president of sales at Etihad Airways and spent 11 years at BMI British Midland.
Manchester-based Portman was acquired by Clarity Travel owner Mawasem Travel & Tourism in November 2016 for an undisclosed sum and the businesses merged.
Mawasem, a UK subsidiary of the Al Tayyar Travel Group based in Saudi Arabia, bought the Co-operative Travel Management in 2014 and rebranded it as Clarity Travel Management.
Parkes will take over at the GTMC in September. Announcing his appointment, GTMC chairman Paul Allan paid tribute to Paul Wait saying: “In the last five years, Paul has transformed the whole show.”
He told the GTMC conference: “We have not tried to emulate Paul in appointing the new chief executive.”
Portman/Clarity and Applehouse are both members of the GTMC.