David Hosking | ||
| Managing Director | ||
| Contiki Tours | ||
Location: Geneva, Switzerland | ||
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David Hosking Biography
David Hosking currently holds the role of Managing Director for The Travel Corporation and Contiki Tours International, the world’s largest travel company for people ages 18 to 35, offering tours in over 40 countries around the world. He has been at Contiki since 1976, where he began as a driver and tour guide. Contiki was originally independent; Trafalgar Tours acquired the company in the late 1980s, and both were later absorbed by The Travel Corporation (TravCorp).
The Travel Corporation is a massive holding company with more than 25 different hospitality and travel specialist brands, including both Trafalgar Tours and Contiki. Hosking has been connected with TravCorp since 1990. By 2001, he had joined their board of directors as well. He is based in Geneva, Switzerland where he manages an office of 50 employees helping TravCorp operate in a wide range of travel options, from river cruises to safaris to overland tours and boutique hotels.
Hosking has been an instrumental part of the building and development of TravCorp. He is on the board of most of its subsidiary companies, often providing consulting services and lending his expertise to projects undertaken by the various brands.
In addition to his many jobs, David Hosking dedicates time to promoting sustainable tourism around the world through The Conservation Foundation. The world is increasingly aware of environmental issues and the Foundation aims to promote tourism in ecologically sensitive locations. Hosking was part of a collaborative effort with Celine Cousteau, a known environmentalist, in honor of Earth Day 2011, to organize educational efforts so that tourists are aware of the risks facing marine ecosystems.
David studied agriculture at Canterbury University and after completing his studies he moved to London and sought work. Despite the fact that his degree is in a different field, Hosking decided that he would pursue a career in travel and hospitality because he loved history and enjoyed traveling. He worked at a number of smaller companies based out of England before starting at Contiki. His path then laid itself out before him, leading him from driver, to tour manager of European tours. He was instrumental in expanding the company’s tour regions beyond what at the time was the “usual” trip, initiating trips to “exotic” locations such as India, Jordan, Iraq and Afghanistan.
When these new locations became politically problematic in the late 1970s, Contiki sent Hosking home to set up tours in his native New Zealand. He worked there for a year, and then moved to Australia to set up a base of operations and then on to the United States to also set up a Contiki in Los Angeles. In the U.S., Hosking became president of the company’s operational base, expanding its outreach and sales to Americans. In 1987, Hosking moved to London to be promoted to managing director of Contiki Europe.
Born in 1953 in New Zealand, David Hosking grew up in Whangarei, located in the northern zone of New Zealand and home to the utmost spectacular coastlines and scenery in New Zealand. Imaginably it could well be these settings that were the stimulation in the birth of David Hosking’s desire to travel and to build such an exceptional travel industry career. Hosking currently also resides in another magnificent location on the coast of Switzerland’s Lake Geneva in Nyon, on the French border. Nyon is situated only a short journey from Geneva’s city center, where Hosking’s work commitments lie in running the Swiss office of The Travel Corporation.
With so many years in the travel industry, Hosking can truly be described as an expert in the field.