On Location
the business. Collett reaches for a photobook he had made from the trip. “We took 48 people on that one – it was great fun,” he recalls. One of his next personal trips will be to
Porto Sani Village in Greece for a family holiday to celebrate his 60th birthday; every moment is precious for Collett since suffering a near-fatal heart attack in 2007. “I literally died – I was at Wembley, watching
the first England game back at the newly reopened stadium, against Brazil. This was the first heart attack at the new Wembley!” he quips in characteristic humour. “I was lucky it happened at the stadium, as there were lots of paramedics around. I was in a coma for 10 days, on the transplant list and in hospital for eight weeks, with a further month at home recuperating. It really is quite a miracle I am still here.” But he adds it was clearly time to slow down. “I think I was doing too much, trying to look
after everything – Michael and I had to look at how we divided the responsibilities, I guess. Now he is much more on the sales side, and I look after the product and relationships,” says Collett. “Roy goes out and about in the industry with all the networking, which suits me fine – I’m focused on sales and am happy to stay back at the office,” Berlin chuckles. They also rely on Jason Palmer, who has
been with Colletts as head of commercial, sales and marketing for 11 years, to help in all those areas, which includes overseeing all the ins and outs of the travel fair. “It’s a lot of work, of course, but it allows us to really showcase what we do to our clients and, of course, our supplier partners,” Palmer says. He also looks after digital activity, and for
Good fortune There has been recent expansion too after the acquisition of Fortune Travel last year. In affluent Temple Fortune in north London, the likes of Hampstead and Primrose Hill are on its doorstep. An agency on a great high street with the likes of Waitrose – “and a great shoe shop” close by – Fortune does well, but founder Joanne Bechman needed her 28-year-old agency to move to the next level, hence turning to Collett. They took over in October and integrating
systems is ongoing, with two members of the Hendon team moving across to Fortune to bed things in. “Roy has a different way of thinking in terms of booking through his network of partnerships with the hotels and obviously with his own tour operation, whereas we had always
booked only through operators – but we’re getting there,” Bechman says. Every five years, the whole team (50 and
counting, plus freelance consultants) gets taken away somewhere exotic; in 2013 it was Four Seasons Marrakech to mark 30 years of
the past three years this has included helping to create a website that allows each of the sales agents under the Colletts umbrella to personalise the website for themselves (for example,
mycollettsagent.co.uk/jasonpalmer). All the offers, product and messaging are loaded, but agents can put their profiles and add destination expertise, fam reports and reviews on there. “I need to update mine,” Collett sighs. “But
we think it’s a pretty unique thing for agents to have. I think as an independent agent, we’re pretty proactive with the things we are doing.” There’s even talk of an extension out the
back of the building, but for now it’s business as unusual for Collett and his team.
Pictured 1. Collett (left) with Berlin and the Riviera brochure 2. Collett with Fortune Travel founder Joanne Bechman
BUSINESS OF TRAVEL SPRING 2016
TTGLUXURY.COM 23
Then Now
Photography: Tristan Newkey-Burden
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