Anything that happened before 2020, when COVID-19 knocked the world out of its orbit and made us all start over, is now ancient history.
For Collette, the Pawtucket, R.I.-based operator of guided tours worldwide, 2018 was its centennial year and marked a century since it was founded. Collette holds the title of America’s oldest existing tour operator.
This is not the typical case of a brand that becomes a corporate franchise and is leveraged by whatever investor currently owns it. This is a company that really has continuity through that century of history. Collette had only two owners in that century, Jack Collette, the owner, and the Sullivan family, which still operates the company now.
It’s a great American business success story. Collette is a real survivor on the world stage of tour operation. A century is a long time to keep a business going, especially a travel business.
It goes back to 1918, at the end of World War I. Jack Collette started offering a 21-day bus tour to Florida for $61.50. Collette discovered a demand for those, added $50 Cherry Blossom specials to Washington D.C. and Collette Travel Service was in business.
The second family comes on stage after World War II. Dan Sullivan, a young army veteran who had worked in the Counter Intelligence Division under General George Patton, returned from service overseas in 1945. He took a job with the New England Transportation Company, running passenger operations in Boston’s South Station. That company morphed into Sage Short Bus Line Company in 1958, and Sullivan became the transportation manager. In that capacity, he developed a working relationship with Jack Collette’s company. In 1962, when Jack Collette wanted to retire, Dan Sullivan convinced him to sell him the company.
Under Dan Sullivan the company set out on a growth trajectory. Sullivan recognized a mushrooming demand for travel from an increasingly mobile US public. A new spirit of travel and possibility was seared into the American consciousness by the 1964 New York World’s Fair and the 1967 Montreal Expo. Sullivan saw the trend and grew the operation to meet the growing demand for travel.
Collette began offering escorted tours to Europe in the late 1970s, expanded to Australia, China, Africa and Mexico in the 1980s, then to South America and Antarctica in the 1990s.
Soon after taking over the business, Dan Sullivan began to bring his son into the business. His son became known as “Dan Junior,” though he was really Dan the Third.
Dan Jr. began working in Collette’s mail room when he was 12 years old and became familiar with all aspects of the business. He was guiding tours by the time he was a senior in high school, which continued until he went to college. When Dan Jr. graduated in 1973, he joined the company full-time. He gained experience working in various departments of the company, learning product development, sales, and marketing.
In 1990, after running the company for 28 years, Dan Sullivan turned over the reins to Dan Jr., who continued to grow Collette’s coverage, expanding into South America and Antarctica. The brand evolved from Collette Travel Service to Collette Tours, to Collette Vacations. Now it’s just Collette.
In 2018, Collette’s 100th birthday, it got a new president. The torch was passed to a new generation as Dan Jr.’s daughter Jaclyn Leibl-Cote took over as president, and Dan Jr. moved into the role of CEO.
Like her father, Jaclyn had grown up in the business. By 2018 she had been a full-time employee for 13 years. She had worked in various departments, rising to the position of executive vice president of product development, before finally becoming president.
Jaclyn Leibl-Cote has worked to move the country forward and adapt it to the changing demands of new generations. The biggest change as the traveling public evolves is that more people want to get deeper into smaller areas, to have more culturally immersive experiences. To align with those changing preferences, Collette has concentrated on growing its Explorations series.
Explorations is characterized by smaller group size and a change in the balance between structured activities and free time. It is targeted to a market in the 45-65-year age range.
“The way we are designing the product is creating a balance and creating choice,” she told me. “A few years back we started to implement more choice on tours, giving that sense of flexibility. It’s not tying you down to everything we say you need to do. It’s saying, ‘We’re giving you the base of what we know travelers are looking for, so you don’t have to stand in line at the Colosseum and go through all that.’ We’re giving choices for people who want more free time, and we’re balancing free time and choice activities.”
Now in the fall of 2022, Collette is introducing 17 new tours and a new logo to represent the latest evolution of the century-old company.
In a company statement, Ms. Leibl-Cote said, “Collette’s brand refresh marks our step forward into a new era. The past two and a half years have introduced challenges that tested us, and we’ve come through led by our values, inspired by our travelers, and stronger than ever. Travelers trust Collette, and the new look is deeply connected with our history; it will feel steady and familiar, and at the same time give them a fresh and modern twist on our 105-year-old Collette brand.”
The company also put out a video to promote its new incarnation.
I had the opportunity to speak with Diana Ditto, the senior director of product marketing, about Collette’s new series of tours and the changes in the market now.
“We are seeing travelers want to spend more time, particularly overseas,” she said, “so a lot of the new tours are longer, 15 days plus.” With air prices up by as much as 40 percent, some travelers are responding by spending more time abroad, to squeeze more value out of that air ticket.
“You used to be able to get to Europe for next to nothing,” she said. “Now the prices are a little higher, and people are staying longer.”
Changes in work and leisure habits wrought by COVID-19 also play into the new structure of demand.
“Those changes definitely play into it,” she said, “and also the pent-up demand. Last year we saw a lot of people traveling in the United States, and people are still traveling domestically, but now they’re really taking that leap and traveling overseas.”
The star of international travel is Europe, but that’s not all.
“Africa and the safari product are back,” she said. “The Middle East is back. We have a new tour of Egypt and Jordan that’s selling exceedingly well. Israel is doing well.”
Collette’s Africa selection now includes programs in South Africa, Botswana, Kenya, and Tanzania, as well as Egypt and Morocco.
“What we’re focused on with new tours, as well as on existing product, is creating very dynamic itineraries,” said Diana. “To give you an example what that looks like, in Africa we have a new safari product that’s selling extremely well. It does part of the safari on land, which is more your traditional safari experience, but part of the safari is on water. So, you’re on a cruise for four nights.”
The cruise element of the experience takes place on small safari yacht on Lake Kariba, on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe.
“It’s a kind of safari experience we’re not accustomed to,” she said. “In the brochures the people are usually all in a jeep. But we have this new experience that takes to water, and there you see the hippos and aquatic birds, the gazelles and different wildlife at water’s edge, versus just on land.”
The company is using the same idea to create dynamic itineraries in the Mediterranean, approaching destinations from the water.
It’s part of many new ways the company is packaging the world for upcoming travelers. For more information, see Collette’s website.
David Cogswell is a freelance writer working remotely, from wherever he is at the moment. Born at the dead center of the United States during the last century, he has been incessantly moving and exploring for decades. His articles have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Fortune, Fox News, Luxury Travel Magazine, Travel Weekly, Travel Market Report, Travel Agent Magazine, TravelPulse.com, Quirkycruise.com, and other publications. He is the author of four books and a contributor to several others. He was last seen somewhere in the Northeast US.
