Dan Sullivan Jr. CEO, Collette

Although Collette Tours is the oldest travel company in the USA and the second oldest in the world after Thomas Cook, the venerable third-generation family-owned tour experts has only been on Australian shores since October 2014. To celebrate one year of its Sydney office, the Consul General of the United States, Hugo Llorens, and Collette’s CEO, Dan Sullivan Jr, invited media and trade guests to an official reception.

From its humble beginnings travelling between Boston and Florida, Collette now offers tours to all seven continents. Its four-star-plus itineraries offer high quality tours at a reasonable price, offering something valuable even within the competitive Australian market, on which Christian Leibl-Cote, Vice President of Service & International Business, admits is one of the toughest in the world to introduce new escorted tour products.

To further make Collette stand out, Mr Leibl-Cote announced that a complimentary door-to-door chauffeur service within 40km of airport for all new bookings between 10 September and 31 October, to all airport gateways. From 1 November 2015, clients will be offered this drive service with any Collette booking incorporating air and land ex Australia.

Alison Mead, Collette’s Australian Business Manager, also highlighted the company’s revolutionary travel protection, offering a full refund right up to the day prior to departure, while Dan Sullivan spoke of the importance of the Collette Cares programme, supporting local communities and groups, such as a drumming group in Alice Springs . Indeed, it’s differences like these that has seen the company succeed in its first year in Australia with plans to triple the office size and double the number of employees.