Preference Vacations looks to English Canada

After nearly 20 years in business, Montreal-based Preference Vacations is setting its sights on English Canada.

Specializing in European tours to Italy, Greece, Spain, Croatia and Portugal, family-owned and operated Preference was founded in Montreal in 2000 after decades of success in the corporate travel world. According to Preference Vacations President Aldo Faustini, the expansion into leisure travel was a natural progression for the business.

“We’ve been around long enough to know the industry well,” Faustini explains. “We were a corporate travel agency before we took on this endeavour and decided to sell wholesale tour packages, simply because we’d get agents who would call and ask us for advice. It became an epiphany and we thought we should do that in a proper, professional manner.”

This year will be the fifth that Preference has been actively courting the English market, releasing its latest brochure in January

While an Ontario-based office for English Canada is still in the works, Preference has been making the rounds at various trade shows across the country to meet with travel agents interested in the product.

In addition to the majority of tours offering guaranteed departures, Faustini said that Preference also offers a number of services which are not often included in similar packages, such as ferry bookings for it Greek Islands itineraries.

“Every year we organize presentations and we invite travel agents to come down and meet with us, so we can explain exactly what we can do for them,” Faustini said. “As a tour operator, we’re a little more hands-on and tailor-made than we are cookie-cutter type product.”

By focusing on just five countries, Faustini said that Preference staff have become experts in their respective destinations who are able to handle the toughest of agent inquiries.

“Our staff are specialists in those five countries; it’s hard to stump them,” he explained. “Agents ask us all kinds of questions, because their clients are asking these same things. We want the agent community to give us a try and we’ll help them satisfy the client and close the sale.”

In 2016, Preference entered a partnership with Europcar, which allows agents to book car rentals to travellers booking Preference’s Europe packages, as well as in any of the 140 countries worldwide served by Europcar, all of which are available in Preference’s brochure and bookable via GDS.

“We have Europcar offerings not just in the five countries where we have tour products but beyond as well,” Faustini said. “This occurred because people were calling us for all kinds of other services as well, such as hotels and transfers beyond our five countries.”

To further draw travellers in English Canada, a number of tours are offered exclusively in English, much like those offered only in French. Faustini said that as the popularity of the Preference product grows, those tours will eventually be offered in both languages.

“We’re trying as much as possible to offer exclusively English or French tours and when the numbers are justifiable, we’ll combine them,” he said.

“Our presence in the English market is growing stronger every year. Our intent is to stay very present in this market and expand our name and product line in English Canada.”