THE CONTINUING JOURNEY

A new generation navigates family travel business

By Ellen Ashton-Haiste

Ellison Travel and Tours is entering a new era. After four decades growing from a two-person office in Exeter to a national agency with close to 100 employees, owners Doug and Cathy Ellison are handing the reins of the family business to the next generation.

The new team is made up of Doug’s daughter, Marcie Ellison Outerbridge, who works out of the company’s North Vancouver office and spearheaded the company’s growth in Western Canada in recent years – and Cathy’s daughter, Michelle Branco, and her husband Paulo. The couple formerly worked in public health and information technology respectively. They have relocated from Toronto to Exeter to work out of the head office. Paulo is general manager, while Michelle is general manager for marketing, people and development. Marcie is general manager in charge of sales and group travel.

“We’re all extremely passionate about travel,” says Branco. “We share the vision and the values of the company.” That vision, she adds, stems back to Doug’s 1980 decision to leave a teaching career to follow his own passion for travel by founding the tour business.

The new leadership took over in 2021 in the midst of the global COVID pandemic, a time Branco describes as “the most challenging in the travel industry’s history.” She’s confident in their ability to successfully weather whatever lies ahead. “We’re a great team. We have our unique strengths and balance each other really well.”

While Branco acknowledges that COVID has generated lasting changes for the travel industry, her team is finding positives as they rebound. “The industry has really exploded,” she says. “We’ve just had our best winter season ever with incredible demand.” She adds that this is being fueled, in part, by a “bucket list trend” as people are becoming less inclined to put off travel plans.

Because of the post-pandemic challenges to travel, many clients tend to seek assistance from professional advisors. Here Ellison is well poised to step up. “We’re lucky to have an incredible team of knowledgeable professionals who are good at what they do,” Branco says. “And we have partnerships with major global travel consortiums that provide us with products and supports so that we have the best to offer our clients.” 