A former Global Travel Group executive has joined B2B platform Reservest, which enables agents to book luxury, multi-room products such as villas, hotel suites and safari lodges.
As director of commercial partnerships, Darren Bond is targeting commercial deals, ranging from individual agent agreements to large consortia and host agencies, as it prepares to launch officially in the UK.
Formerly Global’s head of membership and development, he left the consortium in 2021 after it was acquired by The Travel Network Group (TTNG).
He has since worked as a strategic city manager for Deliveroo and continues to operate his Bounce Back Media business which creates marketing videos for travel agents.
Bond joined Reservest after speaking to founder and chief executive Tarleton Hepburn about the platform.
“I share the vision that Tarleton and Reservest have, that the luxury villa booking process can be made easier by using technology to solve the frustrations that consultants face when trying to book multi-room villas, suites and residences,” he said.
“It’s great to be back in travel.”
He added: “After three months of preparation, Reservest will launch officially in the UK very soon but we’ve already secured several commercial partnerships with the trade including Protected Travel Services, Travel Centres Ireland, high-end, luxury host agencies such as Global Travel Collection (part of the Internova Group), Little Emperors plus others.
“This week [we] signed an agreement to supply ultra-luxury villas to one of the UK’s leading luxury online travel agents, which will be announced soon.”
As well as working with UK agents, Bond will look to work with agencies in Europe, Australia and the US, and extend further into Middle Eastern and Asian markets.
“We serve around 600 agencies globally, of which about 250 are UK based. We have a very thorough, manual vetting process ensuring that we only offer access to recognised trade buyers,” he continued.
“Reservest leverages its purpose-built technology, powered by AI and direct supplier partnerships, to simplify a traditionally complex process.
“By curating products from both recognised brands like One & Only and Mandarin Oriental to boutique brands like the More Family Collection, Samujana Villas and Reschio Estate, Reservest is becoming a one-stop shop for managed luxury in the multi-room space.”
Bond said his experience at Global and other travel brands has been “invaluable”, giving him an insight into consortia and agent partnerships.
“I also had responsibilities in the sales and development side of Triton Rooms (now Yalago), which was great in terms of understanding the tech side, compliance, margin management, health and safety,” he said.
“I have also connected with former colleagues at Triton and now have partnership deals in place, as well as reconnecting with former Global colleagues, some of whom are spread around the world in various travel roles.”
Commenting on the luxury villas market, he said: “Managed luxury has become a requirement. The expectations of discerning luxury travellers booking villas have aligned with their expectations of traditional luxury hospitality.
“As such, most of the villas in our portfolio are professionally managed by a team of professional hospitality staff, from in-house concierge, chefs and even a resident mixologist.
“Exclusivity is also key to a lot of luxury customers and we can supply anything from a private island only accessible by helicopter in the Indian Ocean, a 32 guest mansion in Cannes or a whole wing of suites in Venice.”
He said Reservest was founded during the pandemic after Hepburn and his partners found the process of booking luxury villas to be “incredibly tedious” for the trade.
“There was a severe lack of product aggregation, quality assurance, transparency and direct booking processes,” he said.
“We are also fortunate to be guided by a board of directors that consists of industry leaders from both tech and luxury hospitality.”
Once Reservest is fully established, Bond will develop his team to support agents with more webinars, training, agent visits and attendance at conferences – and even “possibly give agents the opportunity to sample some of our amazing ultra-luxury villas first-hand on fam trips”.
“Having always maintained that agents should support the suppliers that support the trade, I am keen to help agents in the luxury space to develop their businesses and Reservest will listen to feedback, provide the best support, product and technology to enable agents to search, find and seamlessly book luxury villas and suites on our platform,” he said.
