BidTravel boosts business with brains

BIDTRAVEL has
restructured its
management team
to grow its business in the
leisure and corporate sectors
by increasing its focus on
personalisation and leisure
travel, and by capturing
and expanding its bleisure
market.
With the appointment of
Marco Cristofoli in July as
coo of the Leisure Division
and Lidia Folli in August
as coo of the Corporate
Division of BidTravel, the
company aims to provide a
more focused approach to its
strategy.
“In the past we had the
mds of the eight different
brands all report to me – one
guy who was in charge of
everything,” says Allan Lunz,
md of BidTravel. The new
structure allows BidTravel
to plan for succession
and provides a focused
management team driven to
increase the profitability of
the business, he says.
Under the new structure,
Allan will focus more on
relationships with preferred
suppliers and acquisitions.
Marco will continue to
manage the expansion of
the Harvey World brand, to
integrate BushBreaks across
all brands and also to grow
the fundamentals of the
business.
Lidia will manage BCD,
CWT, HRG Rennies, Travel
Connections and Travel Wise.
“Although two separate
clusters – leisure and
corporate – exist, we want to
create synergies across the
businesses through cross
selling,” says Marco. This is
a strategy BidTravel hasn’t
explored before.
 “Corporates that do
business with us need to
understand that when they
go on holiday they can
book their leisure travel
with us,” says Allan.
The company aims to
improve its service delivery
by offering technology to
its customers focused
on personalisation. “We
want to be able show our
corporates where we’ve
saved them money, give
them more accurate data on
their travellers’ behaviour
and identify where and how
we can improve their travel
experience through their
feedback,” says Lidia.
Right now the company is
still in the early phases of
the new developments but
“the strategy will come as we
move forward,” says Allan.
“Watch this space.”