Tourico Holidays Continues Growth With Hiring Wave and Product Department Improvements

November 6, 2009

Global Wholesale Travel Brokerage Company Adds Key Executives, more than 100 Staffers And Is Still Looking To Fill Dozens of Open Positions

ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, Fla., Nov. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Maintaining solid growth from the end of 2008, Tourico Holidays, a Travel Holdings, Inc. company, has reorganized the Product Development Department and added and promoted staff globally, including key new vice presidents.

"Tourico Holdings strives to offer our customers impeccable service and the widest selection of travel options worldwide," said CEO, Uri Argov. "Improving our Product Development Department and adding such experienced staff to our offices around the globe helps ensure we meet our customers' needs, the existing demand and continue our strong company growth."

Thus far in 2009, Tourico Holidays has hired more than 140 staff, in more than 23 countries - Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Korea, Mexico, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, UK and USA.

Prompting the hiring wave is an uptick in revenue. Year-over-year revenue, 2008 to 2009, has increased 14 percent, and Tourico anticipates revenue for 2010 to continue to rise at an even faster pace. During the same 2008 to 2009 period, the number of Tourico travel bookings grew by 23 percent. "The company's outlook towards 2010 is very positive and we anticipate another great year like 2009," added Argov.

As the company continues to expand its product offering across its range of global travel booking web sites, it has hired Francis Riley to the position of Vice President of Cruise Development. In this role, Riley will spearhead the company's development in the cruise sector.

Riley joins Travel Holdings with over 20 years experience in the travel industry, having previously held senior management positions in both the UK and USA. Prior to joining Travel Holdings, Riley was Vice President of International Business Development for Norwegian Cruise Line. Previous roles within the UK included senior positions at Loyalty Management Group, British Airways (Air Miles Travel Promotions) and Thomas Cook.

The enhancements within Tourico Holidays' Product Development Department will ensure that trained product specialists will be available to better respond to customers on such issues as inventory, promotions, payment or contract terms and more.

As part of an effort to better address its improved organization, the Product Development Department hired 31 new people and promoted 14 people. Among them were Dermot Quigley, who was named Vice President of Global PRB Development; and Paul Kitching, who is moving into the role of Senior Vice President of Global Product Development. At the same time, Tourico still has open positions available on all teams (North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia) in the product development department.

In other recent staffing news, 27 sales professionals were hired in the Sales Department in North America, Asia Europe and the Middle East. The Sales Department has open positions in Latin America (two), UK (one), India (three), Southeast Asia (two), China east/center (one), North American Sales Manager (three), and Canada (three).

Parties interested in the open positions can visit the Tourico Holidays booth (NA3330) at WTM in London the week of November 9 or visit www.TouricoHolidays.com for more details and send a cover letter and resume to careers@travelholdings.com.

About Tourico Holidays

Tourico Holidays (www.TouricoHolidays.com) is a subsidiary of Travel Holdings, Inc., a worldwide travel distribution company. Tourico Holidays is a global wholesale travel provider with over 150 international distribution websites, more than 16,000 merchant hotel agreements, operating in 23 languages in over 100 countries. As a supplier to over 2,500 tour operators and travel agents, Tourico Holidays operates and maintains global websites and online interfaces that serve a large diversity of travel sellers.

    Contact:     Sean Hixson
                 314-552-6760
                 shixson@webershandwick.com

SOURCE Travel Holdings, Inc.