Born in South Africa but educated in Europe, Fenella Bishop studied modern languages and commercial law at College before entering the travel business.

Fenella, having extensive experience in North America and other Western markets, started travelling to Asia in 1985 and developed a client base in Taiwan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Indonesia.

In 1988 she was asked to set up the Asia Division for Trafalgar Tours who had emerged as the strongest and largest of the European escorted tour companies.

Taking her existing clients with her to Trafalgar, Fenella spent a considerable amount of time in Asia expanding her network of agents, opening an office in Hong Kong in the early nineties and thereafter in Taipei, Beijing and Shanghai whilst simultaneously controlling the buying for and operating of the tours for these clients

In 1994, the CEO of the Travel Corporation asked Fenella to take on the added responsibility of setting up a centralised division to handle all of the European buying for all of the company’s brands; Trafalgar Tours, Insight Vacations, Contiki Holidays, Grand European Tours, Brendan Tours, AAT Kings and Evan Evans.

In 2003 when Fenella was approached by the former team of Wagon Lit Japan and asked if Trafalgar would be interested in setting up a presence in Japan, the Chairman and founder of the Travel Corporation admitted his lifelong ambition to complete the globalisation of the Company and enter the Japanese market.

Today Fenella continues to travel regularly to Asia and is especially proud of the dedication of the teams in all of the sales offices as well as in the European Operations and Buying Divisions.
She is involved in every aspect of product selection and quality control for both the Western and Asian markets and is especially proud that many of Trafalgar Asia’s clients have been loyal for more than 20 years, a result she believes has been possible as a result of focusing on quality and service.