Sister brands Elegant Resorts and If Only will work “closer together” in the future as they look to strengthen their positions in the luxury travel space.

Speaking at Elegant Resorts’ annual supplier awards event, held virtually last night due to the pandemic, managing director Lisa Fitzell said the two brands would work together while ensuring they remained distinct and separate.

The two tour operators will share back office systems and collaborate more on trade commercials, Fitzell said.

“We will work closer with If Only; it’s been about a year since [parent company Portland Travel Group] acquired the brand. We need to keep the two brands very separate and their identities very separate,” she explained.

“We will share back office systems and ground operations in Barbados, Mauritius and Antigua.

“We will also work very closely between the trade teams – it makes sense for us to do that and work together on events and commercials with consortia moving forward.

“Between the two brands we are expanding our footprint in the UK. We’ve done a lot of work on our technology and we will all be on one platform by March next year.

“Our collaboration with If Only is only going to make us stronger in the luxury space moving forward – we’re really excited about that.”