Advisors

Christina built her business from scratch at the age of 18, and also pioneered a market sector; ‘Airport Concierge’. They now provide services in 500+ airports. She is also founding/shareholder of ‘Whitecar’ a Tesla hiring company that uses the best technology combined with the best customer service to deliver a car hire experience beyond expectation.

She’s also passionate about her charity work for the homeless.

Fiona Anderson is a Director at GEC PR, a specialist travel and lifestyle PR agency based in London. GEC PR has a global client base, and represents tourist boards and lifestyle brands that include the Maldives, Philadelphia, Madhya Pradesh in India and Swarovski Optik binoculars. Fiona has enjoyed a twenty-year PR career, spanning corporate, lifestyle and travel spheres, carrying out fast-moving consumer goods campaigns for Procter & Gamble and Reckitt Benckiser, and devising and leading publicity for premium travel brands that include Kimpton Hotels, Click&Boat, India Tourism, the Philippines, Jamaica and Kyoto in Japan.

An experienced, CIPD Qualified HR & Talent professional for over 25 years, Claire has worked with a range of companies including tour operators, airlines, associations, technology providers, travel management companies and OTAs.

She has a particular focus and passion for next generation talent. As well as her freelance work, Claire is the UK Director for the Global Travel and Tourism Partnership (www.gttp.org), an independent, not-for-profit organization, supported by global tourism organisations, which provides multi-country educational programs designed to introduce students to career opportunities within the Travel & Tourism industry particularly in countries where Travel & Tourism is an increasingly vital part of the economy.

Since 2005 she has been a Board Director of the Institute of Travel & Tourism and Chair of the ITT Education and Training Committee leading on a number of initiatives, including the ITT Future You and Student Ambassador programmes.

Claire is honoured to be an industry Ambassador for both the international water aid charity, Just a Drop, helping raise awareness and support of their vital work to provide safe, clean water for all and the UK charity, the Family Holiday Association, the only national charity dedicated to providing British seaside breaks and day trips for families struggling with some of the toughest challenges life can bring.

Every penny of profit earned by Charitable Travel, everything we do and everything we offer our customers, supports charity fundraising and good causes. We are a registered social enterprise and a financially protected travel agency. Our purpose and mission is to help you with your holiday plans and at the same time support the great work that UK-based charities deliver around the world. When you book a holiday or cruise with us, we sacrifice travel agency commission so you can make a free five percent donation to your choice of charity through our dedicated JustGiving website. We pride ourselves in offering travel expertise, a wide choice of holiday options, quality, great value and a unique way of creating travel-for-good for our customers as a true not-for-private-profit social enterprise.

To learn more about Charitable Travel, check out their website.

Born in Marrakech and educated in France and the UK, Zina Bencheikh started her career in finance before joining Intrepid as Finance Manager in Morocco in 2010. She has progressed rapidly through a number of financial and operational leadership roles with the company, and in 2020 was appointed EMEA Managing Director of Intrepid Travel. She is now responsible for achieving Intrepid’s dual goals of growth and balancing purpose and profit in the EMEA region.

Zina is driven by her passion for making the world a more inclusive and equal place. She has used the company’s global reach to create economic opportunities for women through tourism, breaking down gender barriers in countries where women have been traditionally excluded from paid work and equal access to education, such as Morocco.

Now regarded as one of Morocco’s leading advocates for gender equality, Zina’s work has been profiled by the BBC Travel Show, Skift, Forbes, amongst others.

Ed Lines is an Industry Manager working on Google’s UK Travel Team, specialising in the hospitality sector. He works with travel advertisers, helping them to identify trends in consumer behaviour and technology adoption and align their online advertising strategies.

Greether is the platform that helps women travel safer by connecting them local female Greeters around the world who they can book to navigate destinations.

In 2021, Saumya relocated to the United Kingdom to pursue her Master’s degree in Social Psychology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is deeply committed to understanding and influencing human behaviour in order to better society. She previously managed a travel startup in Mumbai, India, which required her to travel to 13 different countries. She has worked in business development in a variety of industries, including travel, events, and ad tech. Saumya also spent nearly a year in a small Vietnamese village teaching English to children and young adults. She has also always volunteered on the side to alleviate poverty and combat human trafficking and has worked for an NGO in Dharavi, Mumbai’s largest slum, as well as an NGO in Kamathipura, one of the World’s busiest red-light districts.

In her free time, she enjoys dancing and actually trained and worked as a professional jazz dancer during her undergraduate studies. She also enjoys cooking and trying new cuisines, as well as physical activities such as hiking and running.