South African tourism group Tourvest has made an internal appointment to head its in-flight retail services business, Tourvest Duty Free, following the departure of Selwyn Grimsley, whose formal exit was 30 November.

 

Clive Jones becomes the new CEO of Tourvest Duty Free – whose partners include British Airways and South African Airways and which processes over 1.7m sales transactions per year. Jones has been with Tourvest for 11 years and was previously in the corporate travel management division, Tourvest Travel Services, where he served as Chief Operating Officer.

 

Tourvest Travel Services is one of the top two corporate travel management companies in South Africa, providing its services to more than half of South Africa’s top 100 JSE-listed companies. It holds the master franchise rights to the American Express Travel Services (Amex) brand in sub-Saharan Africa.

 

In his new role, Jones will be responsible for growing the business by building Tourvest’s in-flight retail services, one of the three biggest in the world. The company recently lost a major account when Virgin Atlantic chose DFASS as its new concessionaire.

 

CLIENT-CENTRIC APPROACH

According to the company, Jones intends to achieve growth “by fostering a client-centric ethos within the company, and delivering further revenue growth for airline partners through unique and route-specific product ranges targeted to exact traveller demographics”.

 

There will also be more focus on crew training and incentivising, and developing competitive advantage through the introduction of technology and additional in-flight retail opportunities to its partners.

 

Tourvest Duty Free, packs, loads and tracks over 31 million products every year for eight airlines that operate close to 750 flights a day from six airports worldwide. Its concession partners include: British Airways, South African Airways, SA Express, Kenya Airways, TAAG, Arik, Interair and Precision.

 

Commenting on the appointment, Tourvest Travel Retail chief executive, Eric de Jager (left), says: “His experience with, and understanding of, supplier relationships with most global airlines is particularly valuable to us and will assist our in-flight sales business in the provision of tailor-made value propositions.”