Maja Gedosev

Maja Gedosev

General manager Europe

JetBlue

Maja Gedosev is the General Manager Europe for JetBlue, responsible for sales, marketing, communications, government and regulatory affairs. Based in the UK, Maja was instrumental for the successful launch of the JetBlue transatlantic flights between New York and London Heathrow in August 2021 and New York and London Gatwick Airport in September 2021. She is currently busy preparing the Boston to London flights launch scheduled for summer 2022.

Maja joined JetBlue from a U.K. regional carrier Flybe where she was Director of Communications, responsible for government affairs, consumer PR, sponsorships and brand building.

Prior to moving to the U.K, Maja was the General Manager Commercial and Corporate Affairs at Air Seychelles and before that Head of Corporate Affairs for Air Serbia.  Her aviation career started as a ground handling agent for Lufthansa. Outside the industry she has also worked in a range of pharmaceutical and financial consulting roles.

Maja is very active in diversity efforts and is a member of the Women in Aviation Charter initiative, frequently speaking to young girls about pursuing careers in aviation.

Maja is a proud mom of two daughters, Mia (17) and Sofija (13).  She has two Westies called Jet and Blu and is a passionate runner.

Zina Bencheikh

Zina Bencheikh

EMEA Managing Director

Intrepid Travel

Born in Marrakech and educated in France and the UK, Zina Bencheikh started her career in finance before joining Intrepid as Finance Manager in Morocco in 2010. She has progressed rapidly through a number of financial and operational leadership roles with the company, and last year was appointed EMEA Managing Director of Intrepid Travel. She is now responsible for achieving Intrepid’s dual goals of growth and balancing purpose and profit in the EMEA region.

Zina is driven by her passion for making the world a more inclusive and equal place. She has used the company’s global reach to create economic opportunities for women through tourism, breaking down gender barriers in countries where women have been traditionally excluded from paid work and equal access to education, such as Morocco. 

Brad Bennetts

Brad Bennetts

Head of Distribution

easyJet holidays

Brad has more than 17 years of travel industry experience. His expertise ranges from small specialist tour operators to well-known brands such as Kuoni and, more recently, easyJet holidays. An outdoor enthusiast with a young family, most of his career has been working with travel agents in B2B sales. Brad has worked closely with TTG over the years with events such as TTG Top 50 Travel Agencies, TTG Travel Awards and TTG Luxury events and awards.

Debbie Flynn

Debbie Flynn

Managing partner & global travel practice leader

Finn Partners 

Debbie Flynn is the Managing Partner and Global Travel Practice Leader of Finn Partners dedicated travel team. After 10 years at BA Debbie founded Brighter Group in 1995 before merging it into Finn Partners in 2018. UK clients include tourism boards, hotels, airlines, tour operators travel agents and ancillary travel services. Debbie and her team are the reigning recipients of the TTG Best PR and Representation Agency.

Nick Hughes

Nick Hughes

Sales director, tour operations – B2B Europe

Dnata

Nick has been in the travel industry for nearly three decades and has led numerous award-winning sales and marketing teams across multiple sectors. He was appointed Sales Director – B2B Europe at Gold Medal Travel in 2017 and is responsible for all trade relationships, sales & commercial partnerships.

Nick was appointed Chairman of TIPTO in 2019, a group of leading suppliers providing high quality training across the UK for agents. Nick also sits on the Membership committee at ABTA and is an active member of dnata’s Diversity & Inclusion programme “Belong”, currently sitting on the physical disability committee.

A passionate advocate for the industry as a whole, Nick hopes to see a more unified industry in future across supply & trade bodies, plus an accelerated advancement in sustainable and responsible tourism.

Martin Johnson

Martin Johnson

Director & co-founder

Latin Routes & Polar Routes

Martin is the Co-Founder and Director of Latin Routes, an award-winning tour operator specialising in holidays to Latin America and Polar Routes, a specialist wholesaler of expedition cruises to the Polar regions and beyond. Since the company’s humble beginnings above a pizza shop, it has grown into one of the UK’s leading tour operators to Latin America and the Polar Regions. Martin heads up the business with co-founder Jessica Dennison and primarily deals with the overall development, while overseeing marketing and operations. In 2018, Martin also joined the board of the Latin America Travel Association (LATA) and now holds the Vice-Chair position.

Martin’s wider travel career began with resort-based roles for Eurocamp, Crystal the Finest and Thomson (now TUI) before grounding his travel career at Trailfinders where he started as a junior, before moving through the ranks to their Specialist Cruise Department. He then went on to spend time in operations at Flight Centre before founding Latin Routes in 2012.

James Lewis

James Lewis

Head of partnerships

Holiday Extras

Bio coming soon...

Tolene van der Merwe

Tolene van der Merwe

Director UK & Ireland

The Malta Tourism Authority

Tolene van der Merwe is the Director UK & Ireland for The Malta Tourism Authority, having joined the team in October 2019. Tolene began her career in the tourism industry at Exclusive Getaways, the luxury South African operator. Tolene later joined London based tour operator African Affair Travel furthering her specialism in African tourism product before founding Boutique Travel Marketing, where she spent seven years growing the hotel representation company. 

Claire Stirrup

Claire Stirrup

Sales Director UK & Ireland

Celebrity Cruises

Claire has over 30 ‘something’ years’ experience in Travel & Tourism. From a very young age, Claire always wanted to travel and pursue a career in the industry. When Claire left school, she joined an apprentice programme in Travel & Tourism to kick start her career in the industry.

In the early part of Claire’s career, she worked in various travel retail stores across a broad sector, plus undergoing a bit of holiday repping and cabin crew.

Claire joined Royal Caribbean Group 8 years ago and has worked the last 6 years at Celebrity Cruises. During her time at Royal Caribbean Group, Claire has had multiple roles and is now Sales Director for UK & Ireland with a fabulous sales, training, trade marketing and trade support team reporting into her.

Claire is a ‘northern lass’, married to Andrew with two sons Joe and Harry and a cockapoo called Ted.