Our Experts

Alison joined the Sunvil team in 2019 but has long been an extended member of our family, having sold our holidays as a travel agent for 25 years! Sunvil is more than a business, our approach to travel - introducing visitor to lesser-known places and placing them among the locals, is a concept that our staff buy into and feel passionate about. Our holidays are those that we ourselves enjoy and would recommend for our friends and family. Alison is no exception having chosen a Sunvil trip to the Azores for her honeymoon and having recently returned from Veneto.

Chris is the Sunvil Group’s managing director and is not only responsible for the overall running of the company, the welfare of its staff, the fabric of the building, the efficient working of its computer systems but also for overseeing and contracting much of the accommodation on the GIC The Villa Collection programme. He is a very hands on managing director, a friend and helper to all, mad on aircraft and indefatigable. Chris joined The Greek Islands Club in 1993, after two years running a scouts’ holiday camp in Wales. He was responsible for maintaining The Club’s sailing boats on Paxos and generally acting as a rep for the villas. Sunvil Inherited Chris on purchasing GIC in 1998 and his abilities were quickly realised. He well deserves the top job.

Claire joined us in 2005 after having spent 6 years in Lesbos running her own business teaching English, where she married a Greek. The economic crisis in Greece forced them to return to the UK. Alongside day to day reservations, Claire is also mother goose to our 30 or so overseas representatives in Greece and works very closely with Graeme, our overseas manager in Greece, to arrange for their interviewing and training. Understandably she loves Alonissos.

Courtney joined the Sunvil family in April 2018 bringing with her over 20 years of industry experience. Travel is in Courtney's blood and she loves nothing more than a challenging holiday enquiry to sink her teeth into. Her passion for travel is infectious and she revels in being able to find the perfect holiday for our guests.

With its lush valleys, vine-clad hillsides, historical towns and a National Park, it is easy to understand what Cristiana is so passionate about northern Portugal, her ancestral home. Fluent in Portuguese and conversant in Spanish, she has been able to scratch under the surface of these countries on her travels and loves nothing more than sharing her findings with our guests. Recently Cristiana has returned from Swedish Lapland, a destination which was on her own bucket list and which did not fail to impress.

Having been at university and unsure as to what to do following some temporary jobs, Dudley joined the family firm as a brochure packer in 1979. In those days distribution was from the office premises and Sunvil was just beginning to grow again, following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, the company’s major destination, in 1974. He was then made responsible for travel agency sales. In due course he took over the running and brochure writing for the Sunvil Greece programme and the contracting of accommodation. He is now a director of the company and is the most knowledgeable and experienced member of the Greek team. He mixes work in administering the programme with taking reservations and he particularly enjoys tackling complicated and well nigh impossible itineraries.

Elena, has been with Sunvil since 2014 and hails from Peru. She is very passionate about Central and South America which is understandable and she comes from those regions. She has a very broad experience of tailor made itineraries, having worked at Natural World Safaris, Best at Travel and Journeys Latin America. You would have thought that Peru would be her favourite destination but in fact it is Argentina. She also know's a great deal about polar cruising.

Graeme, our Overseas Manager, joined us as our Representative in Ithaca in 2000, after having run a hotel in Scotland for many years. All our representatives report to him and he is responsible for their training and performance. Graeme spends his winters on reservations and general administration in our UK office and is a valuable members of the team. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of all our destinations as he travels from region to region during March to October, troubleshooting and contracting accommodation for the following season. Needless to say his favourite island is Ithaca, where he started his career in travel.

Those of our clients who have, over the last 20 or so years, visited Tolon in the Peloponnese will know Jackie; our very knowledgeable and passionate representative. Having decided to return to the UK, she has joined our reservations team and, needless to say, knows Tolon, a resort we have featured since 1973, inside out. It will come as no surprise to know that the Peloponnese is her favourite region in Greece.

Jane came into our office to enquire about a Greek Islands Club villa holiday and somehow ended up joining us in early 2002. She has been responsible, since the beginning, for developing our groups department which is steadily growing. Sunvil specialises in facilitating groups for clients who have their own specific interest groups and require an operator with the necessary licences and expertise to manage the reservations and administration. This allows them the time to market their group without worrying about the minor details.

Joe is a welcome addition to our Latin America team. He previously completed a 5 month personal trip around South America. His knowledge of the region has been enhanced even further by a 5 week research trip around Argentina, Chile and Costa Rica. However, his passion for travel started long before this. He has visited 53 countries (and counting) and he loves nothing more than discovering the unknown and trying new experiences. Not one for a straightforward beach holiday his main passion whilst abroad is scuba diving but any adventure activity or getting out into the great outdoors is what truly appeals to him. Having spent 5 years with other specialist travel firms he could not have had better experience in crafting the best itineraries.

Growing up in Greece instilled Jordan with a deep passion for the country and her people, an appreciation of their history and culture, and an understanding of the true meaning of 'filoxenia' (warm, authentic hospitality). He loves nothing more than introducing our guests to the country of his childhood.

Justin came to us straight from university and has been on reservations ever since. Over this time he has developed an in-depth knowledge of Greece and her islands and uses his first-hand experiences to design complex island hopping itineraries around the Cyclades and the Dodecanese as well as fly drives on the Greek mainland. Justin loves the lesser-known regions and islands of Greece including Folegandros, Thessaly and the Peloponnese.

Karo came to us in 2010 for her one year placement while at University. We liked her and she liked us so, after finishing, she ended up coming back. Being Polish and wanting to go back to Poland to get married, she now picks up the phone - thanks to modern technology - in her home town of Przezmierowo. Along with Justin, her specialities are complicated fly drive and island hopping itineraries. Her favourite region in Greece is the Ionian.

Lloyd joined Sunvil for a year as part of his International Tourism Management sandwich course in 1995. After having completed the course at Brighton University he came back to Sunvil to develop a UK programme and to run the Royal Shakespeare Company’s short breaks programme in Stratford-Upon-Avon. After several years it became quite clear that clients were quite happy to make their own UK travel arrangements and so he was tasked with developing the Costa Rica programme which had just been launched. He is now director of the growing Sunvil Latin America programme.

Mark came to Sunvil in 2007 and, by his own admission, his spell here has been the longest he has spent in any organisation. Previously he had worked in TV, website design and the music scene in general. A fervent lover of Greece he has travelled extensively throughout the country since working at Sunvil and knows the regions we cover. He is particularly fond of the Cyclades and Dodecanese islands and cites Sifnos and Milos as particular favourites.

Michelle, of course, has a Norwegian mother and, needless to say, knows Norway extremely well. She also loves Portugal. She has been with us since July 2010 and has bags of experience in the travel industry having worked at XL Holidays, Barwell Leisure and for 7 years at the Magic Group.

At Sunvil we run a very high risk business as we charter aircraft and we pay whether we fill the seats or not. Neil is our wheeler dealer. He monitors our load factors on the aircraft and matches the beds we have abroad with the availability of the seats on the aircraft. He also takes reservations when necessary and counts the Peloponnese as his first choice for a holiday.

Noel is Sunvil’s Chairman. Born in Cyprus in 1948, he joined John der Parthog at Sunvil in 1973. Before that and following university, he spent 3 years as a trainee buyer at C&A Modes and then worked for a large Cypriot builder and property developer for whom he set up a London Office buying electrical components for the Middle East and importing lemons from orchards in Cyprus. He still researches new destinations for Sunvil and is heavily involved in matters relating to the travel industry. He is a previous chairman of ABTA, a long standing director and previous chairman of The Association of Independent Tour Operators (AITO) and the current chairman of The Travel Foundation - the travel industry’s sustainability charity.

Rebecca provides the important administrative backbone our European tailor-made programme, making sure the complicated documentation is in order and that everything goes out on time. She joined in 2013 from Lindt Chocolates but previously she had considerable travel experience with the specialist Magic Group of companies that were taken over by Thomson Holidays and before that with Holiday Hypermarket.

Rosanna is the head of our Discovery Department which covers tailor made holidays to Portugal and the Azores, Italy and Sicily, Scandinavia and the new programme to Spain. She is our longest serving member of staff having joined in 1994 after completing an honours degree in French and Italian and subsequently working for a tour operator in Yorkshire. She is responsible for brochure writing, contracting accommodation, programme costing, computer inputting and generally troubleshoots where necessary. She has global knowledge of our tailor made programme.

A long serving member of the Greek team, Stella is well travelled and well versed in our Greek destinations. Her visits over the years have provided her with a lifetime of memories, and she is always looking forward to her next trip - especially if it included a stay on Skopelos, her favourite island - and exploring new destinations. Stella is also responsible for reservations to Cyprus.

Steve joined Sunvil in June 2011 and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of central and south America. He has a passion for putting together complicated itineraries, each one a challenge. Having spent 11 years with other specialist operators he could not have had better experience in crafting the best itineraries. Give him a try, he’ll soon tell you what does or does not work.

Since joining Sunvil in 2007, Yasmin has travelled extensively across Portugal, the Azores, Spain, Italy, Sicily and Scandinavia. Her depth of knowledge of these countries is remarkable and she uses this to personalise the tailor made itineraries for our clients - attention to detail is something that is second nature, put her to the test. Though fluent in Spanish, she ranks Portugal as her number one destination... with our new programme to Sao Tome and Principe a close second.