ETOA elects new chairman
The European Tour Operators Association (ETOA) has elected Mario Bodini as its new chairman.
He will replace Patrick Richards who is stepping down after a seven-year term.
Bodini is executive vice President of JacTravel, the business-to-business wholesaler which was recently sold by Bowmark Capital to Vitruvian Partners for £80 million.
"My aim is to continue the focus, ensuring that ETOA works on behalf of its members to take away barriers affecting the competitiveness and the ease of doing business in Europe," he said.
"I am committed to doing my bit to ensure brand Europe does not become complacent especially in the eyes of the newer, developing source markets and I am very keen to ensure ETOA wholeheartedly embraces electronic distribution as an increasingly important factor in travel to Europe."
The association also has a new commercial director, Martine Ainsworth-Wells, who will take over some of the management duties of CEO Tom Jenkins.
Jenkins said this would allow him to ‘give much greater focus to policy initiatives, lobbying government forcefully on topics like visas, tax and regulation, which have the potential to make a very significant difference to the commercial performance of members’.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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