Canvas Holidays appoints new MD
Canvas Holidays has promoted operations director Simon Allan to managing director, effective January.
He succeeds Paul Carter, who is moving to become senior vice president, operations, for the European division of RCI, the world’s biggest vacation exchange company.
Canvas and RCI are both part of Wyndham Exchange and Rentals, Wyndham Worldwide’s recently rebranded holiday rental business, which was formerly known as Group RCI.
Carter will also continue as MD of Wyndham’s Hotel Dynamics division.
Ian Ailles, managing director of Wyndham Rentals, said: ‘Over the past two and a half years, Paul has displayed exceptional leadership and has made significant improvements in terms of customer experience and employee engagement.
‘He leaves Canvas in the strong and capable hands of an excellent and highly experienced management team, now led by Simon Allan.’
Canvas also recently appointed John Whitaker as finance director.
Whitaker spent ten years with MyTravel, the last three as finance director of Eurosites, and then helped Thomson set up its camping brand, Al Fresco, where he was both finance director and managing director.
Most recently he has been working at TUI Travel-owned LateRooms.com as interim commercial director.
Set up over 40 years ago, Canvas Holidays currently has 100 sites across nine European countries including Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France and Holland.
In addition to Canvas Holidays, the Wyndham Rentals portfolio also includes The Holiday Cottages Group (HCG), which comprises cottages4you, English Country Cottages, Welcome Cottages, easycottages.com and Villas4you.
HCG recently announced its first television campaign for three years, with an advert premiering on Boxing Day and running throughout the first quarter of 2010.
The campaign promotes the cottages4you brand and aims to highlight the benefits of a self-catering holiday by focusing on the experiences guests take home with them.
Customer research carried out by HCG showed that the main features of a cottage holiday were relaxation, freedom and enjoying being ‘back with nature’, which will be reflected in the 40-second TV advert.
HCG is the UK’s biggest holiday cottage rental agency with a portfolio of over 15,000 properties across the UK and Europe.
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