Christopher J. Dane, a veteran travel industry executive, has been named president of Hickory Global Partners (HGP), an Intravel company.
Dane served as a managing director at American Airlines, a founder and executive vice president of Vacation.com, and most recently president of HRG North America’s Affiliate Program and HRG/Executive Travel Associates.
Hickory is the newly re-launched corporate travel agency consortium, the company said, that seeks to leverage data-driven, revenue management business methods to change the way the model delivers return on investment for agency and supplier partners.
In the past Dane was president of the former Hickory Travel Systems, a Hickory legacy firm, but left that post over differences with ownership, the company said. Intravel, a holding company of The Traina Companies, acquired the assets of the 40-year brand in April of 2011. A year later Dane was brought onboard as general manager to transition the newly rebooted shop from start-up to full operation, according to the firm.
“After 35 years of wrestling with distribution, I had a bold plan to re-engineer the old Hickory but at the time, the environment was ill-suited,” said Dane. “Now that the obstacles are cleared, we are disrupting this space with technology-based strategies and innovative moves. This includes offering the only robust consortia air program and hotel incentive program, and a ground-breaking data consolidation and business intelligence product in collaboration with TRX. We are bringing measurement and accountability, and guaranteeing ROI," Dane said.
“Partners maintain consortia relationships because they become a ‘comfort zone’ or ‘club’. When I heard Chris’ plan for revolutionizing the consortia model, I asked him to take over,” said Joseph R. Traina, HGP chairman. “Chris has decades of experience with both agency and supplier perspective, and the command of technology and digital innovation necessary to change the vocabulary of this industry.”
Visit www.HickoryTravel.com