Hopefully I don't confuse you here but American Express Vacations was ran by Travel Impressions who was owned by American Express. At the time, Travel Impressions was the largest travel wholesaler in the US, which enabled us to acquire the best hotel rates around the world to sell to Travel Agent offices. Travel Impressions is responsible for managing several travel brands under their company umbrella, including American Express Vacations, Delta Vacations, and David’s Bridal Destination Weddings.
Prior to taking my first Marketing Manager job at Travel Impressions, I interviewed at Hachette Filipacchi with a man who later became a mentor of mine, Al Silvestri, who at the time was Hachette
Filipacchi’s VP of Corporate Marketing. Under the Hachette Filipacchi umbrella were publications like Car and Driver, ELLE, Road & Track, and Woman’s Day; all brands that I lusted to work for or with at some point. Once I took the Marketing Manager role at Travel Impressions I immediately saw an opportunity to develop an exciting new travel brand with the ELLE brand.
The concept behind ELLE Travel was to create new revenue streams for Travel Impressions and Hachette Filipacchi by leverage ELLE’s readership to market a new travel brand. The ELLE Travel difference would exist in travel packages consisting of the best fashion and shopping destinations in the world, while packaging various lifestyle tours into the travel cost for ELLE readers to experience global fashion through once in a lifetime experiences.
