APT, PTS, Vintage Travel: this week’s travel trade people moves

Former Solmar Villas commercial lead Gary Horsford has been appointed overseas operations and commercial manager at Vintage Travel. Posting on LinkedIn, Horsford said he was “pleased to be part of the team to continue to secure high standard properties within the existing destinations as well as destination expansion". Horsford will work alongside suppliers and owners to expand Vintage Travel's portfolio across all destinations, but with a particular focus on mainland Greece and its islands. Horsford previously spent 20 years with the new defunct James Villas brand, where he rose to head of commercial before joining Solmar.

Protected Trust Services (PTS) has named Miya Gilritchie as its new commercial and partnerships manager, replacing previous commercial manager Emma Taylor. Gilritchie will be responsible for negotiating supplier commercial agreements for PTS members and working with the company’s expanded marketing team to grow brand awareness. Gilritchie’s previous roles include key account manager for Bedsonline and regional account manager for Travel Cube. She was also previously Attraction World's business development manager for Scotland, Northern Ireland and the North East.

Luxury and sustainable travel specialist Purpose Travel, part of Travel Counsellors, has taken on a fellow TC to help "elevate the agency's concierge levels", director Ellie Adamo said posting on LinkedIn. Melanie Lycett has been assisting with Purpose Travel's post-booking queries, helping with "little touches such as arranging private taxi transfers to emailing hotels for special occasion bookings and even restaurant reservations", Adamo, a TTG Sustainable Travel Ambassador Class of 2023 and speaker at TTG's Fairer Travel Month, elaborated. Lycett joined Travel Counsellors in 2023 after 15 years with Nottingham Building Society.

CT Travel Group, parent company of Pettitts Travel, has named Caroline Everard its new head of people and culture. Everard will oversee people and culture strategy for all of CT Travel Group’s brands – including Pettitts, Trade Missions, MICE and Business Travel – and has a track record of driving employee engagement across a variety of sectors including banking, insurance and accountancy.