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4 March, 2024

“Australians are the best travellers”: Collette CEO on how the iconic brand sings to Aussies

By James Harrison

Collette’s CEO, Jaclyn Leibl-Cote, will make her way Down Under this week to connect and reconnect with the Aussie travel industry and media delegates.

Leibl-Cote told Travel Weekly that, while she’s in Australia, she’d like to show the Collette point of difference to Australian travellers that she holds in high regard.

“Australians are the best travellers that there are,” she told Travel Weekly, adding that the pent up travel demand Australians felt due to the pandemic has driven them to earn that number one spot.

In capitalising on this, Leibl-Cote is taking this trip to Australia, and is undergoing further expansions in the Aussie market, to alert the travel trade of Collette’s offerings.

“Where we’re expanding is with our sales team to make sure that we’re getting front of advisors, that we’re doing the trainings, that they understand who Colette is [and] how we set ourselves apart from the other guided tour companies out there,” she said.

A great draw for Aussies in the Collette offerings range is the exploration small group product line that looks to immerse travellers in a destination.

“You’re getting some of the ‘musts’, but you’re also getting some of the things that you might not choose to do on your own but are really great travel destinations as well,” Leibl-Cote said, adding that Collette’s focus on connecting with the customer experience and opening itself up to local influence on its tours is what sets it apart.

“That goes a long way with not being so cookie cutter,” she said.

“We’re a solid four-four and a half star value with just enough inclusions of ‘must-sees’ and things that travellers won’t realise that they should be doing in a destination that they can’t do alone – that they would not if they were doing independent travel.”

She continued: “There’s a lot of flexibility that we’ve built into our tour products and I think that’s really what sets us apart. We’re not that stereotypical guided tour company that you would have thought of 5-10 years ago. We’ve really evolved because we’ve listened to the people taking the tours, the travellers, of course, the advisors as well – we always are listening to that.

“But the people who take the tours are the ones who also are giving us the feedback for how we need to continue to improve based on what their expectations are.”

To better agents’ experience with the luxury tour brand, Collette is upping its amount of self-service tools. Leibl-Cote said this is to allow agents to put deposits down when they need and means there will be less waiting on hold.

“We do want to support them so that they can continue to make business and make money,” she added on the additional self-service tools.

Leibl-Cote will connect with Sydney-side travel industry members at a dinner on Wednesday.

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Collette Jaclyn Leibl-Cote