Our People
The UK TUI Education Division has years of expertise in the student travel market, and provided 170,000 students with experiences to over 60 countries in 2009 alone.
The senior management team provides a structured operation without compromising the individual brands' strengths and values.
Edwin Doran, Non-Executive Director – Sports Businesses
Since his retirement as Managing Director of Edwin Doran Sports Travel, Edwin has taken on the role of Non-Executive Chairman of the Sports Businesses. By providing independent scrutiny and support to the business management teams, Edwin’s wealth of knowledge and breadth of experience in this marketplace help to ensure that we provide exemplary customer experiences. Edwin also has a wider Ambassadorial remit for the Student Division.
Dame Kelly Holmes, Non-Executive Director
Olympic double gold medallist Dame Kelly Holmes joined the TUI Education Board as a Non-Executive Director in May 2011. She is passionate about empowering children and adults to perform to their best ability and this ethos is embedded into everything TUI Education does, such as training and development and the trips they provide to students. In this new role Dame Kelly looks forward to drawing on the skills she has gained through her military physical training background, sporting achievements and commitment to children through Doublegold. Her experience includes a number of sporting ambassadorial roles at large corporations such as BT.
Ian Finlay – Managing Director, TUI Education Division
Previously Managing Director of his own educational travel company, Ian has the relevant experience to run the TUI Education Division and has been Managing Director since its origin. Ian's vision was to bring together a portfolio of market-leading student travel providers and ensure that no child misses out on the opportunity to travel and explore outside the classroom.
Paul Hawkes – Finance Director, TUI Education Division
With significant experience of developing TUI’s student operations, both within the UK and North America, Paul works alongside current and potential businesses to assist in their inclusion within the portfolio. Ensuring all brands complement the product range and strengthen our ability to provide exceptional value-for-money experiences to students of all ages.
Lisa Lilley – Business Development Director, TUI Education Division
Having taught in primary education, Lisa understands both the pleasures and pains involved in leading a school visit. Lisa utilises her passion for travel, commitment to education and previous experiences both as a teacher and as Managing Director of a schools activity company. Lisa is focussed on ensuring that the TUI Education Division can provide meaningful, challenging and diverse opportunities for as many children and young people as possible.
Karen Watson – Commercial Director
Having worked for the TUI Education Division since inception, Karen works alongside a sub-division of businesses within the portfolio that offer a wide range of experiential holidays mainly to gap year and university students. By identifying similarities and key strengths across the brands, the businesses ultimately aim to deliver a better experience to the customer.
Andy Fraser, Finance Director – Schools Businesses
Andy has worked in the Travel industry for over ten years, joining the group in the late 1990s. Having worked across a number of areas within the TUI Travel group, Andy is able to bring a wealth of experience to the businesses he works with in the division. Focussing on the Schools orientated businesses, the building of relationships across the brands and development of opportunities for customers to enhance their experience with the TUI businesses is a key priority of Andy's role.
Andy Coghlan, E-Commerce Director, TUI Education Division
With 20 years experience in the development of sales, marketing, and e-commerce strategies for organisations such as VisitBritain, AVIS Europe, JustForTeachers, Volvo Ocean Race and Hilton Hotels, Andy provides E-Commerce strategic leadership and support to all business units within the Student Division, ensuring our businesses match the markets requirements for e-communication. With a passion for travel and new media, Andy’s mission is to deliver profitable, engaging customer experiences to grow business, captivate customers, and spread the word.
Hannah Fraser, Communications & Business Support - TUI Education Division
In addition to working for TUI Education Division since its origin, Hannah has a First Class degree in Tourism Management and has travelled extensively worldwide. She provides communication and business support to all of the brands in the portfolio, assisting in their integration. Hannah also has firsthand experience of organising and implementing school ski trips and fully understands the value of education-based travel in learning.
Janie Burt, Managing Director - JCA & Adventure Quest
Janie has been with TUI Travel PLC for over 16 years, working predominantly overseas. With her knowledge and significant experiences within the group, she is now Managing Director for JCA, a leading provider of UK Residential trips to schools. Janie is passionate about delivering high quality, value for money trips for schools and youth groups, and JCA has recently achieved its Learning Outside the Classroom Quality Badge.
Vicky Knight, Managing Director – Travelbound & HTS Summer Tours
Having worked in travel since she graduated, Vicky has gathered a wealth of knowledge and experience in student travel. Vicky relishes the opportunity to give children amazing experiences through educational tours created and delivered by Travelbound, recognising the value of education outside of the classroom is a key part of their development. A school trip will stay in a child’s memories for a lifetime, aiding a child’s learning and social skills as well as helping build confidence.
Laura Braithwaite, Director – Sports Businesses
A chartered accountant with a background in strategy Laura has spent the last five years working alongside numerous businesses within the TUI Travel Group supporting their financial and strategic development. As Integration Director for the Sports businesses Laura is focussed on driving superior business performance by leveraging our combined brand, product and distribution strength to offer an attractive range of quality sports tours and festivals to a wide variety of customer groups.
Mark Gardner, Managing Director - Teamlink Travel
Having gained valuable experience working in both the States and Lapland prior to his role at Teamlink, Mark specialises in developing the Long Haul section of the business and extending the company’s event management portfolio. Having created and brought CalellaFest to market, his aims are to provide innovative travel and festival experiences for clubs, schools and universities.
Sam Seward, Managing Director - SET Sports Tours
Having founded SET Sports Tours on graduation from University, Sam indulged his love for travel personally leading tour parties all over the world and experiencing his product first hand. An events and sports festivals specialist, Sam has created a number of very successful brands for SET, including SET MasterClass- a coaching and tournament product for schools and www.ilovetour.co.uk - the market leading university sports festivals brand. Sam relishes the challenge of creating and launching new products and seeing clients enjoying essential life experiences through sport and travel.
Ian Barton, General Manager – Edwin Doran Sports Travel
Ian has recently taken the post of General Manager for Edwin Doran where his 19 years of experience within the industry provide him the right balance to understand the desires of group leaders and tour participants alike. Ian has travelled extensively whilst working in the Sports tour market and brings passion to the product given his lifelong involvement in various sporting activities. Ian’s understanding of the benefit of the experiences provided to children outside of the classroom setting sets the benchmark for the business and high quality levels upon which the Edwin Doran business is founded.
Neil Rayer, General Manager – Gullivers Schools, Clubs & Festivals
Neil has been in the sports travel business for over 11 years, joining Gullivers Sports Travel straight after graduating from University. Combining a love of travel and sport was always the aim, and there was no better place to foster this ambition than at GST. Having travelled extensively around the world developing sports specific relationships, Neil firmly believes that Gullivers wide portfolio of destinations can provide clients with high quality and challenging tours to remember.
Mark Bush, Managing Director – School Ski Businesses
Having spend many years managing different aspects of SkiBound’s Overseas Operations programme, and more recently as MD for Travelbound, Mark brings a deep understanding of school ski trips and educational tours to his role. Mark works closely with the customer focused SkiBound, SkiClass, HTS Total Ski and HTS Ski Value teams to ensure that a wide range of high quality trips are offered, which meet all budget and destination requirements.
Nigel Miller, Managing Director – World Challenge
Previously with KPMG, Nigel’s passion for travel started with a posting to West Africa – managing an office in Gambia and working on aid projects. A Chartered Accountant and Chartered Director by profession, Nigel has successfully led World Challenge to where they are today – a company fully committed to giving young people life-changing development opportunities. Seeing children depart on a World Challenge expedition and returning as young adults, is the most rewarding part of Nigel’s job.
John Boughton, Managing Director, Real Gap and i-to-i Meaningful Travel
John entered the world of travel in 2003, joining First Choice Holidays tour operations in Crawley to manage various projects before heading up product development for First Choice holidays and First Choice Airways in 2005. In 2006 John moved from Mainstream to join the rapidly-expanding activity sector, starting as Commercial and Product Director for Exodus, one of the UK's largest adventure companies, and latterly taking over as Managing Director of Explorers, one of the UK's leading dive operators. At the end of 2009, he took over as MD of Real Gap and i-to-i, with the plan of developing both brands and increasing their influence in the volunteering and gap year market. John spends his spare time travelling and skiing.
Gordon Mathie, Managing Director - i-to-i
Formerly with Accenture for 10 years, Gordon joined i-to-i as overseas director in 2002 after completing a one year solo Land Rover trip through Africa. In his fifth year as Managing Director, Gordon has led the company through a period of sustained growth and acquisition by First Choice in Feb 2007. He has considerable knowledge of the gap/volunteer marketplace and is now working to rapidly expand the experiential travel market within the TUI Education Division.
Alan Bates, General Manager - International Academy
Alan manages the UK office for International Academy and his core aim is to ensure that all IA customers have a life-changing experience. The International Academy is dedicated to ensuring students get the most out of their ski and snowboard instructor experience by working with the best resorts and fantastic on-site staff.
David McClatchey, General Manager - The Fanatics
David manages the UK office in Covent Garden for The Fanatics. In addition to dealing with many Australians on work-visas in the UK, it is David’s mission to ensure British travellers get to experience some of the magic of the amazing events attended by The Fanatics.
Bryn Robinson, Managing Director – University Ski
Bryn has been involved in the industry for over 20 years with particular experience in both Educational tours and Ski tours. Following 5 years as Managing Director of SkiBound, Bryn recently has taken the role as Managing Director for the University Ski businesses. These combined ski businesses give TUI Travel a market leading position within this sector with great opportunity to expand further.
Sam Cox, Managing Director – Trek America
Sam joined TUI in August last year having worked in the pub sector for Scottish and Newcastle for the previous nine years. Since joining TUI she has been involved in a number of projects in the field of aviation. Sam’s passion for travel began at University and she has travelled extensively since then. Sam’s goal at Trek is to provide unique adventures that create life changing experiences.
Andrew Fisher – Managing Director – EAC
Andrew established EAC in 1992 and has been committed to the development of the business and the EAC brand. His main aim is to offer high quality, value for money English Language Courses and Activity courses to children and teenagers aged 9-18 years and adults from all over the world. For many children and teenagers their first visit to the UK is via an EAC course, and Andrew takes great pride in creating the best learning experience possible for all EAC clients.
The independent management teams within each business are all committed to the principle of experiential travel and learning, and recognise and applaud the role teachers' play in this vision.
Our operational teams throughout the world are trained to the highest possible standards and are dedicated to meeting, and often, exceeding those requirements. These individuals are at the forefront of the customer experience and encompass all our core values.
