The Travel Village Group has appointed former Wendy Wu Tours global sales director, John Warr, as group managing director.
Warr joins the 62-year-old, fourth-generation family agency, to support chief executive Phil Nuttall in the next phase of its growth plan.
He has been working with The Travel Village in a consultancy role for the last few weeks.
Warr was most recently global sales director at Wendy Wu Tours, having been with the touring specialist since 2014 until his departure in September. Previously, he worked at Thomas Cook, ultimately with responsibility for running its retail stores.
Warr said: “I’m so looking forward to the next chapter. This business has great heritage, values, ambition and drive, and has tremendous potential and opportunity as it emerges from the pandemic.
“We will be focusing on the various areas of the established business to build further on the gains made through Paula [Nuttall’s] travel professionals in the Holiday Village and Phil’s retail, ocean and river businesses.”
He added: “This is a company that truly cared for its team during lockdown and in my short tenure with the business I have experienced first-hand how that loyalty is being rewarded.”
Nuttall told Travel Weekly that he and his wife Paula, who runs The Holiday Village, had “invested everything we had” to keep the team together during the global health crisis.
They said: “We have kept our team together and are now raring to go. We’ve got so much potential and we are truly excited that John is joining the family business.
“We’ve been lucky enough to have worked with John whilst he was at Wendy Wu Tours and more recently in a management consultancy capacity, and so have seen his passion, expertise and energy in action – and know the Travel Village Group will immensely benefit from his experience, hunger and drive.”
Phil Nuttall added: “With John’s very strong interpersonal skills, a reputation for leaving no stone unturned and great personal values we knew that we would be a perfect fit to our family business.”
Nuttall said the Travel Village’s business was built on the relationships it nurtures with its customers through a network of salespeople across the Travel Village and Holiday Village businesses. It sells a broad spectrum of package holidays, ocean and river cruises as well as adventures and tours.