Latest news with #WorldTravel
BBC News
19-05-2025
- BBC News
Jersey residents donate 3,000 pairs of glasses to charity
A Jersey woman has collected more than 3,000 pairs of glasses from islanders, which will be given to people with limited access to eye care around the Lewis, who works at World Travel, has hit the major milestone in just under two current total of 3,047 pairs of glasses will be given to Lion's Club, a charity that sorts spectacles at a depot in the UK, before sending useable frames worldwide to those in 2023, Trena started the collection with a simple donation box in her office, but has since had to expand her operation to spare cupboards and the boot of her car to accommodate the generosity of islanders. Schools, clients and community groups have been getting involved, with islanders regularly popping into the travel agency to drop off their used Lewis said she's really happy to see young people in particular getting involved: "We've had a number of children come in."It's lovely to see them because I'm sure those glasses, once they've been sorted in the UK, will go to some really worthy children who are looking for glasses."Children are sitting in school and they can't see the board and we can help with our glasses that we would otherwise discard, so why would we not help?"Lion's Club accepts both glasses and sunglasses of all shapes and sizes. Trena said the charity would also accept broken frames : "Even those elements that are beyond repair and might be broken when we go through them, they are then responsibly recycled – so nothing is wasted."Going forward, Trena's collection shows no signs of slowing said: "Why can't we try and do 5,000 by the end of the year? I'm hoping that from now until the end of December that we have a deluge of glasses from everybody rooting through their cupboards and drawers."World Travel Jersey is open to collect islanders' glasses from 0900-16:00 Monday-Friday.
Travel Weekly
18-05-2025
- Business
- Travel Weekly
World Travel wants to boost vacation sales, but don't call it 'leisure'
Alex Eaton, CEO of World Travel in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is on a personal mission to eradicate the term "leisure" from the travel industry's vernacular. "For me, the word 'leisure' is just doing nothing," Eaton said, adding that it connotes leisure suits -- "not a good look, not a good vibe" -- and retirement communities, which often use the term leisure in their names. The CEO prefers the term "vacation," and that's the portion of World Travel's business that he and president Matt King are working to build. The agency currently has a business mix of about 75% corporate travel and 25% leisure (sorry, Alex). World Travel recently reorganized its leadership, with Eaton moving from president to CEO and King from executive vice president to president, all to further the goal of growing the World Travel Vacation Department. "Matt and I both want to have a little more balance in the work portfolio, from our profit standpoint, from a revenue-generating standpoint," Eaton said. "If the pandemic taught us anything, being super reliant on one side of the business -- groups, corporate or vacation -- is a recipe for potential disaster." Ideally, Eaton said, vacation travel would make up 40% to 45% of World Travel's business, something he and King hope to achieve with a two-pronged approach. First, they plan to bolster the agency's leisure advisor infrastructure. For corporate travel, for example, there are processes in place for managing airline schedule changes and unused tickets. But the agency's leisure advisors are doing things "soup to nuts," Eaton said, which he believes can be streamlined with better processes and procedures. That could include an air desk. "They're professionals," Eaton said. "They do an amazing job. The best thing that we can do is get them freed up to spend more time on the phone with our customers and helping them." Second, they want to develop new talent in-house as employees, not via onboarding more independent contractors. That strategy bucks the host agency/IC model that has proliferated in vacation travel in recent years, but it's one Eaton said he believes in. While World Travel does have a handful of ICs, Eaton said, they are mostly former employees who are semiretired. The agency now has around 68 full-time employees and plans to add more leisure advisors to the mix. Eaton said it would take 18 to 24 months before those new advisors start generating revenue. "We understand that, and our goal is to find the right people to invest in and make it very clear to them that we're investing in them, we're investing in their future, in part because we're investing in the company's future," he said. Eaton doesn't have a specific goal for the number of advisors who will focus on vacation travel, but World Travel plans to hire five or six people in the next six months. He is looking for advisors who will not only sell travel well but fit into World Travel's culture as good teammates. World Travel's evolution The push for more vacation sales is the latest evolution for World Travel, which has gone through a number of changes since its founding in the late 1950s as a tour operator taking Midwesterners to the Northeast on fall foliage trips. Eaton and his father, Len, purchased the agency in 1997, and King joined 17 years ago. In 2021, World Travel rebranded from World Travel Service. World Travel plans to continue supporting and growing its corporate business. Its target clients are small and medium-size enterprises with annual travel budgets under $20 million. The corporate business has grown organically over the years, something King said he expects will continue. World Travel also has been investing in AI to streamline processes. "We find ourselves being high tech and high touch," said King, who is a believer in the right blend of "people, content, process, tech." "You've got to have the right mixture," he said, "but we really want to always lean into the human side of that."
Leaders
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Leaders
AlUla Launches "Arch Rock and Stargazing" to Promote Environmental Awareness
The AlUla Governorate has unveiled a new community initiative titled 'Arch Rock and Stargazing,' designed to spotlight one of the region's most iconic natural landmarks. This event combines environmental education with immersive experiences, encouraging both fun and a sense of responsibility toward nature. Launched in celebration of Earth Day (April 22) and Environment Week 2025, the initiative attracted a wide range of participants, including local residents and tourists. The goal is to foster a deeper connection to AlUla's unique landscapes, promote sustainable ecotourism, and engage the community in preserving the area's natural heritage. Related Topics: AlUla Manara Unveils Stellar Experience at AlUla Skies Festival 2025 Eid Al-Fitr 2025: Enjoy Unmissable Experiences in AlUla AlUla Skies Festival 2025: Spectacular Celebration of Celestial Heritage, Discovery Play Qiddiya City Joins the World Travel, Tourism Council Short link : Post Views: 1 Related Stories
