5. Sales Leadership in Tourism: The Case of Contiki Canada

In 2013, at the Contiki global conference, experts were brought in to teach Contiki employees from across the globe about a new way of selling. This change was brought on by the President of Contiki Canada, Sheralyn Berry, after she noticed that Contiki’s target market was changing the way they bought their trips. Since the conference in 2013, their target market of 18–35-year-olds had moved away from purchasing trips through travel agents and were now almost exclusively booking trips through Contiki’s website. Sheralyn and other Contiki executives realised they needed to drastically change the way they were selling to their target market. To help address this concern, Contiki embraced a new selling model called the Consultative Selling Process (CSP). The change to the CSP was slow, but it eventually made its way to the majority of Contiki and is practiced by salespeople every day. The objective of the case is to provide students with an understanding of the importance of top-down integration by leaders who were passionate about the CSP and who took the time to mentor, coach and train their salespeople, thus creating one of Contiki’s competitive advantages. Furthermore, the case attempts to show how much impact the sales department can have on various stakeholders as well as sustainability initiatives especially in an industry as dynamic as tourism. The dilemma lies with how to move forward with the Consultative Sales Process when navigating the post-COVID-19 travel environment.