Travel 2 managing director Andy Freeth has been named as managing director of both Travel 2 and Gold Medal following the acquisition of both businesses by dnata Travel last year.
Freeth takes responsibility for both trade brands and also for Travel 2’s and Gold Medal’s luxury programmes, Simply Luxury and Pure Luxury respectively.
All brands are to be retained despite suggestions they could be consolidated due to duplication.
Freeth will lead the sales, marketing, product, commercial and operational functions for both businesses, which will continue to operate from both Glasgow and Preston.
He will be supported by a team of directors from Travel 2 and Gold Medal, who will share responsibility for the combined businesses in their respective areas.
Freeth will announce his senior management team over the coming few weeks, confirming what will happen to key trade-facing executives including Gold Medal’s acting managing director Robin Parry and sales director Ruth Hilton and Travel 2 sales director Gordon McCreadie, among others.
Andrew Botterill, European chief executive for dnata Travel B2B, who promoted Freeth into the new role, said: “I am thrilled to appoint Andy to this exciting role. He has excelled within the Stella Travel Group for over eight years.
“In that time he has transformed Travel 2, driving the business forward to achieve growth in revenue and profitably consistently, year after year.
“I can think of no-one better to realise the potential that sits within these two great businesses and I look forward to supporting him and his team as he works to pull the two businesses together.
“He has the opportunity to create an exciting new mould-breaking entity that will operate behind both brands and drive them forward.”
Botterill added that he was confident of retaining existing talent and recruiting new talent externally into the business: “The opportunities for expansion and growth are significant.
“We remain focused on our commitment to retaining both strong B2B brands. With the growth opportunities we forecast across the other areas of the business, we confidently expect to retain the existing talent we have in both businesses and hope to recruit additional new talent for new opportunities very soon. Watch this space.”
Freeth said: “It is a real privilege to lead these two iconic trade-facing brands, and the great people within them, to the next phase of development.
“We’ve made no bones about the fantastic opportunity there is to grow and develop our breadth and reach for dnata and I am truly excited about continuing to work with our partners and suppliers to achieve this.
“There’s a big job to do, but working collaboratively with the teams in both Glasgow and Preston, I’m very confident that we deliver on dnata’s ambitious plans.”
Botterill also announced three other members of his travel executive team. Bruce Wildgust becomes director of information technology and will lead all IT teams in the B2B structure.
Simon Woodford has been appointed director of air product and will take responsibility for all air product functions across B2B & B2C dnata Travel brands. Andy Stark will remain as managing director of The Global Travel Group, continuing to report to Botterill.
All four roles complete the UK B2B travel executive team and they will continue to work within their respective businesses to shape the company for growth and expansion, Botterill said.
Middle-East based dnata Travel acquired Gold Medal in February 2014 and Stella Travel Services (including Travel 2 and the Global Travel Group) in September 2014.