It’s been Ensemble for just over two decades now, but back when this headline ran, the name change for one of the best-known brands in consortiums – GIANTS – was a big enough story to warrant front page coverage.
The headline for this edition of ‘It Happened This Week’ is: ‘GIANTS rebrands as Ensemble Travel; targets consumer market for growth’
At this point GIANTS had been around for some 36 years, after getting its start in 1968. You might not know that GIANTS was an acronym; the full name was Greater Independent Association of National Travel Services. It was a strong brand, and a visual all-caps attention-grabber.
With a sizable footprint in Canada, part of the reason for the switch from GIANTS to Ensemble was that Ensemble worked in both English and French.
As the Travelweek story also notes, the new branding was also the next step in the consortium’s evolution from a B2B organization, to a B2C network “focused on helping its members and preferred travel partners aggressively grow their client bases.”
Then-president and CEO Jack E. Mannix said: “We feel that Ensemble Travel is a better reflection of our members and the superior assets they bring to the travel experience.”
In 2022 Ensemble Travel Group was acquired by Navigatr Group, the parent company of tour operator Kensington Tours and retailers Travel Edge and Travel Edge Network.
Did the headline about the rebranding from GIANTS to Ensemble appear in Travelweek in 2004, 2010 or 2016?
Fill out the contest form below, with your guess and your email address. We’ll announce the answer and the winner next week, along with the next contest headline. Last week’s headline about the ECC’s report on airline industry deregulation, called a ‘study into yesterday’, ran in June 1981. Our winner for Week #16 is Wilma Suurnakki with The Travel Agent Next Door in Windsor, ON. Congratulations Wilma!
Every Wednesday in Travelweek Daily, we’re posting an article from Travelweek’s archives, spanning the years 1973 – 2023. Guess the correct year the story ran, and you could win a $50 Amazon gift card. There’s a new headline and a new chance to win every single week.
