The Travel Corp. Unveils New Sales Force for Velvet Collection Launch

The Travel Corporation (TTC) on Monday announced the new sales team for The Velvet Collection, the luxury and premium umbrella brand that includes Uniworld, Insight Vacations, Luxury Gold, Red Carnation, and African Travel.

The new brand will not be launched to consumers and will not be doing combined marketing; however, all brands under the umbrella are going to share a sales force “to ensure that we’re supportive of and efficient with our travel partners and their time in the future,” TTC CEO Brett Tollman told TMR last month.

The Velvet Collection’s sales force will operate in the U.S. in two distinct regions—East Coast and West Coast—and will roll-up under TTC brand heads Ellen Bettridge, president and CEO of Uniworld; Jonathan Raggett, Global CEO of Red Carnation Hotel Collection; Jon Grutnzer, president of Insight Vacations and Luxury Gold; and Sherwin Banda, president of African Travel.

“We have created a dream team,” Bettridge said. “As an organization, we continually evaluate our business processes to ensure that we are delivering the best solutions and assistance to our partners and guests. TTC is driven by service and that’s exactly the point of our new Velvet Collection sales team.  We want to be ready to better serve agents catering to travel’s first returners: affluent market customers who are looking for perfectly planned, authentic experiences across the globe.”

Grutnzer, in a statement, said that advisors working with the TTC can expect “a seamless transition as we take advantage of tremendous talent and shared resources across The Travel Corporation.”