INTOURIST Travel has appointed a new managing director in a bid to regain its position as the top operator to Russia.
Des McGuinness, who has just joined the company, worked for Intourist from 1983-1992 as sales director and commercial director. He left to run The Russian and Baltic Tour Company.
He said: “I am going to ensure that Intourist returns to the position it enjoyed in the early 1990s as the number one specialist to Russia.
“We are going to try and work with the travel trade much more than we have been doing in past. There was a time when the trade was heavily involved. I’ll be paying as many visits to agency head offices as possible and getting the independent agent consortia on board too.”
McGuinness’ appointment follows hot on the heels of a round of redundancies at the company.
“There have been redundancies across all departments, but they don’t affect the day-to-day running of the company,” he added.
“No departments have closed, we still have our visa, tailor-made and individual traveller departments. I’m looking at it with a positive attitude.”
McGuinness’ first job is to put together the company’s brochure for 2000, which is due to be with agents in September. Among the new products for next year will be themed breaks for fans of classical music, ballet and literature. The operator’s musical tour will start with an evening at the Bolshoi Ballet, with a backstage tour thrown in.
Also on the agenda will be a visit to the Moscow State Conservatoire for a concert. Clients will then transfer to St Petersburg, where they will be treated to a lecture on Tchaikovsky from a leading university professor, and will visit the flat that composer Rimsky-Korsakov lived in.
A literary tour will start in St Petersburg, taking in the house of Russia’s most famous poet, Pushkin, and the flat where novelist Dostoevsky spent his last years.
Clients then transfer to Moscow to visit the house where playwright Chekhov lived in the 1880s and Tolstoy’s estate, where he wrote War and Peace.