As part of a new marketing and customer service initiative, Travelocity has named Michelle Peluso as Chief Operating Officer, Scott Danielson, as Senior Vice President of Marketing, and Rick Welch has been named Senior Vice President for Customer Service and Operations.

Picture:Atlantis Paradise Island

As chief operating officer, Peluso is responsible for all lines of business at Travelocity, including air, car, hotel, cruise, vacations, packaging, partner marketing, product marketing and operations, Site59 and online distribution.

“Michelle has been a driving force in many changes taking place at Travelocity,” said Travelocity CEO Sam Gilliland. “Our merchant hotel programme and our dynamic packaging work are just two of the major initiatives that have resulted from her leadership. I am excited to have her in this new role, and I know she’s excited to take on the new challenge.”

Prior to joining Travelocity as Senior Vice President of product strategy and distribution, Peluso served as Chief Executive Officer of Site59, the leading last-minute online travel Web site that was acquired by Travelocity in March 2002. Previously, Peluso held various posts at the Boston Consulting Group and served as a White House Fellow and senior advisor to the Secretary of Labor. Peluso replaces Chris Vasiliou, who has been elevated to Senior Vice President, international at Sabre Holdings.

As Senior Vice President of marketing, Danielson will now oversee brand and creative strategy, advertising, merchandising, customer experience and public relations. Danielson brings extensive marketing experience to Travelocity, including senior leadership roles at both Prodigy and America Online in the mid-to-late 1990s, overseeing much of AOL’s growth from eight million to 20 million members. He has developed brand packaging for numerous television and cable networks, and he was president and CEO of PlanetClick, Inc., the first Web Discovery Engine, on which 14 million Web sites were rated by everyday Web users. Most recently he was president of online travel consultancy Squeezoom, LLC.

“We are very fortunate to have someone with Scott’s background to lead our marketing team,” Gilliland said. “Clearly, we have an opportunity to build an even stronger, world class marketing organization under Scott’s leadership.”

As Senior Vice President of customer service and operations, Welch will oversee Travelocity’s three customer service and sales centres in San Antonio; Clintwood, Va.; and Plains, Pa.; and will be responsible for all customer service and sales strategy, planning and training. He comes to Travelocity from Cendant Corporation, where he was Executive Vice President of Cendant Travel Distribution, which included a role in the purchase and integration of Galileo, CheapTickets and Trip.com. He was previously Senior Vice President of reservations and information services for Certified Vacations and director and general manager for Alamo Rent-A-Car, and he was manager of guest services operations and training for Marriott Hotels, Resorts & Suites.

“We are already proud of our strong emphasis on customer service, particularly because we are the only major online travel company that has only its own people providing customer service,” Gilliland said. “Rick’s strong background in travel customer service presents us with an opportunity to get even further ahead of our competitors in this area.”

Peluso, Danielson and Welch will report to Gilliland.
Travelocity, a Sabre Holdings company, pioneered the online travel space and continues to be the most popular travel service on the Web, giving consumers access to hundreds of airlines, thousands of hotels and cruise, last-minute and vacations packages, and best-in-class car rental companies, all backed by 1,000 customer service representatives staffed to provide 24-hour assistance. With 38 million members, Travelocity is the sixth largest travel agency in the United States. It has been recognized worldwide for its leadership in the online travel space, and it operates or powers Web sites in five languages across four continents.

Sabre Holdings Corporation, (NYSE: TSG) is a world leader in travel commerce, retailing travel products and providing distribution and technology solutions for the travel industry.

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