MSC Cruises is continuing its expansion in North America with two new hires to its sales team.
Holly Sievers and Brett Draper will now be joining the sales crew as manager of host and home-based accounts and manager of corporate and incentive sales for North America, respectively.
Sievers brings 20 years of travel industry experience to her new role. At MSC, she will be responsible for the marketing, sales, training and education of the cruise line’s host and home-based agency accounts along with its Interline accounts. Her last post was working at Exclusive Travel Group, where she was the southwest and central region business development manager.
Throughout her career, Sievers has also worked with Carnival Cruise Lines, Funjet Vacations and the travel section of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Founding and owning a global advertising and marketing company has also attributed to her success – here, she built multi-media campaigns for travel industry partners across the globe.
Draper’s responsibilities, on the other hand, will be cultivating and managing corporate relationships “with a focus on the North American meetings, incentives and charter market” increasing brand visibility in this sector. He previously worked on the sales specialist team for Lindblad-National Geographic Expeditions, also joining MSC Cruises with 10 years of previous cruise industry experience under his belt. Other positions he has held include charter service manager for Norwegian Cruise Line and as an event manager for Holland America Line, where he spent five years at sea.
Joe Jiffo, senior vice president of sales for MSC Cruises USA, said in a written release that as the brand continues to grow in the North American market, a key priority is to ensure that there are dedicated teams “focused on all distribution channels.” He said that he and the company couldn’t be “more thrilled” to bring Sievers and Draper on board, especially with the home-based and MICE channels being “extremely important and rapidly growing sectors for MSC.”
Related Stories
AMResorts Promotes Jan LaPointe to Support Company's Goal of 100 Resorts by 2020
Three New Sales, Exec Hires at American Queen Steamboat Company
Cruise Planners' Top Producers Explore the Galapagos on Celebrity Xperience
Recipients of Entrepreneur of the Year Award Pacific Northwest Announced