After recently appointing sales representation for both leisure and MICE in North America, Tour East is now opening a full-service travel industry support centre in Los Angeles, based within the JTB Americas Company building.
Speaking on this development, Chris Bailey – senior vice president said: “The Americas, as a source market, has become increasingly important to the Tour East Group and we are seeing growing demand for our destination management services which now span 14 countries across Asia-Pacific and especially as clients look for more expert knowledge and experiential-driven tailored travel programmes.”
The office will help facilitate more direct delivery of expert destination knowledge to industry partners. It will also act as an administrator for bookings and importantly payments, which not only provides a more “real-time” communication opportunity for customers, but also negates the need for extra administration and costly money transfers to conclude transactions, he elaborated.
Tour East will also add a sales presence in Sao Paulo, Brazil to further expand its sales and business development network supporting the planned expansion of the Americas source markets. This office will cover South American and Mexico markets.
With the group’s business derived entirely from B2B relationships within the travel industry, efficiency and ease of doing business are key to the group remaining an attractive trading partner, Tour East Group’s CEO and president, Shigeyuki Suzuki, said.
“Technology plays an important part in this and Tour East is certainly driving options in this regard – but so is the ability to talk and interact with our people located in and near our clients’ home markets. Our growing team of sales and business development professionals are strategically placed to add that extra layer of service and access.”
