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| Bill Smith |
It's been a busy week in the cruise industry for retirements and hirings.
Bill Smith, a 44-year travel industry veteran and vice president of cruise sales at Virtuoso, announced his retirement this week. Smith will officially retire July 1.
Virtuoso will promote Beth Butzlaff to the role of vice president, filling the vacancy left by Smith’s retirement. In his five-year stint with Virtuoso, Smith has helped drive growth in Virtuoso’s cruise division, the company said. Smith was most recently involved in the rebranding and expansion of Virtuoso Voyages, the company’s flagship cruise program. He added six additional suppliers to the program. Prior to his time with Virtuoso, Smith held executive roles at Crystal Cruises, Silversea Cruises, Costa Cruise Line, Princess Cruises and Eastern Airlines.
Also this week, Carnival Cruise Line hired Kathy Mayor as its new chief marketing officer. In her new role as CMO, Mayor is responsible for driving Carnival Cruise Line’s marketing strategy across a variety of platforms including digital marketing, e-commerce, advertising, guest loyalty and public relations. She will report directly to Carnival President Christine Duffy.
Mayor previously worked at Las Vegas Sands Corp. where most recently she served as global senior vice president of strategy, CRM and e-commerce. In that role she led Sands’ corporate marketing efforts in marketing technology, data science and market research, and then led Sands China’s digital marketing, social marketing and e-commerce product management. Mayor joined Las Vegas Sands in 2008 and previously carried the titles of global vice president of CRM and loyalty marketing, and executive director of strategic initiatives.
Hurtigruten also made a marketing appointment this week, naming Cathy Swift as its new marketing director, North America.
Swift has more than 26 years of marketing experience. She has spent time as marketing director at TCS World Travel where she launched new initiatives, a website and a digital marketing program. At Story Worldwide, she managed a global content marketing program for 4.5 million Lexus owners in 50 countries. Other experiences include marketing projects at Microsoft, ABCNEWS.com, Disney and more.
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