Welcome Richard D’Ambrosio: A Letter From The Editor

I hope you’ve noticed the many changes taking place at Travel Market Report—and this week we have another, as we welcome Richard D’Ambrosio as our Retail Editor, covering news designed to help travel professionals run their businesses, sell more product, and make more money. Richard and I were colleagues at Business Travel News back in what we like to think of as its heyday, and then he went on to work at Virgin and American Express. I’m thrilled to be working with him again. 

Richard joins our growing list of top-notch editors and columnists and observers of the travel-professional scene, which now also includes former editor of Travel Agent magazine James Shillinglaw and former ASTA counsel Paul Ruden. Search on their names any time to easily access all their articles. 

We’ve been adding new tabs at the top of our website, too. We’re watching to see your response to our Consumer Media stories, in which we have been reporting on what the consumer publications are writing about—and what your customers are reading. That beat, which Richard also will be covering, includes taking a hard look at advertising by travel suppliers, with a focus on whether the call to action includes “Call your travel agent.” We truly see our responsibility as acting as the voice of the travel professional, and constantly reminding suppliers of the importance of professional travel agents as a distribution channel. 

And of course, we’re trying to grow our circulation. I want to personally thank our Board members and our Facebook and LinkedIn friends for their continued support, and for encouraging their friends and colleagues to check out the new-and-we-hope-improved Travel Market Report — and hopefully to hit the “Subscribe” button to receive our daily newsletter. I hope you will, too. 

We’ll all be in Toronto on May 2 and 3, at our third annual Travel Marketplace show at the beautiful Sheraton Centre Toronto. I hope to meet you there in person—please feel free to come up to me and chat, and to enter the Without A Travel Agent You’re On Your Own video contest we are co-sponsoring with ASTA and ACTA—the winner gets a cruise for two, so don’t be shy. Click here for details. 

Please feel free to add your comments to our stories, to email us with feedback or pet peeves or story ideas, and just generally to reach out to me personally at any time.  

See you in Toronto! 

–Cheryl