L-R Carl Buerckner, Andrew Macfarlane, Andrew Jones, Penny Spencer, Trevor Jones, Kevin Dale
Andrew Jones
Founder & ChairmanAndrew entered the travel industry as a teenager, working with Thomas Cook in Hobart. By the time he was 25, in 1993, he had established his own agency, Andrew Jones Travel.
Over the next 20 years, doing a mix of retail and corporate business, he and his wife Karen, who still works in the agency, built the Hobart location into Tasmania’s largest independent travel agency employing over 40 staff.
Andrew was on the American Express Advisory Board, transferring subsequently to a directorship on the Travelscene American Express board. He has also had other industry roles with AFTA and the TCF.
Kevin Dale
Founder (retired from board in mid-2017)Kevin has experienced business success in a number of industries in Australia and the UK but his passion has always been travel. From his beginnings as a small hands-on travel agent in country Victoria he has risen to prominence in roles that include managing director of award-winning Melbourne CBD agency, National Network Travel, chairman and co-founder of Australia’s major cruise consortium, Cruiseco.
He spent the past decade as a director of Virtuoso Australia and is a former president of the Skal Club of Melbourne. Recognition outside the travel industry includes life membership of the Australian Jaycees and chairmanship of the Essendon Football Club’s corporate supporters’ Group, the Dick Reynolds Club.
Trevor Jones
Founder & DirectorTrevor is best known in the Australian travel industry as the proprietor of award-winning Melbourne travel agency, Hawthorn Travel & Cruise. With a background in airline wholesale and retail, including opening the CIT office in Melbourne, Trevor founded his agency in 1983 and over the subsequent 30 years achieved great distinction.
The agency was three times named American Express Office of the Year Trevor himself was appointed to a worldwide advisory board for American Express in New York and inducted into the American Express Hall of Fame. He represented American Express’ Victorian/Tasmanian franchise offices for 10 consecutive years and later was elected to the Travelscene board and franchise council.
Penny Spencer
DirectorPenny started in the travel industry as a teenage work experience student and went on to build the Spencer Group of Companies, recently elevated into the AFTA National Travel Industry Awards Hall of Fame. Her industry awards stand alongside accolades and nominations in such prestigious programs as the Telstra NSW Australian Business Awards and BRW’s Top 50 Best Places to Work. Penny was listed number 24 in SmartCompany’s Top 30 Female Entrepreneurs 2013.
She is passionate about her brainchild, the not-for-profit TIME (Travel Industry Mentor Experience) and charity work that includes Spencer Travel Swim Safe teaching children from disadvantaged areas how to swim. She is the author of a book titled Love What You Do and Never Work A Day In Your Life.
Carl Buerckner
DirectorCarl’s distinguished travel industry career has given him a high profile in both the Australian corporate travel sector and in the wider travel industry. A former managing director of HRG Australia, Carl held a number of senior corporate travel positions before founding his own successful travel management company, Platinum Travel, in 2009.
Platinum Travel forged links with global TMC network, Uniglobe, which are now available to members of Magellan Corporate. In the wider travel industry, Carl has achieved recognition in a number of roles, most notably as a long-serving chairman of the Australian Federation of Travel Agents.
Andrew Macfarlane
Managing DirectorAndrew held senior agency and airline roles in Australia and North America prior to joining Magellan Travel Group in 2008.
In the 1990s he held a number of senior posts with STA Travel in Australia then in 2001 he became STA Travel’s VP Canada, establishing a successful new business for the company in that market over the next three years. On his return to Australia, Andrew worked for Jetstar as General Manager Sales and then Air New Zealand as Regional Manager VIC,TAS,SA &WA.
Since joining he has led Magellan’s growth from a fledgling, breakaway group of Travel Agents to its position today as the fastest growing Group in Australia for high-end, independent Travel Agencies, and is increasingly involved in the industry at large as an AFTA Director and current Chairman of the APJCC.