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Global Voyages Group to represent Voyages to Antiquity in North America (**updated**)

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Aegean Odyssey - operates destination-focused cruises
Update adds more insight from David Yellow. UK-based Voyages to Antiquity entered into a strategic, integrated partnership with Seattle's Global Voyages Group to provide marketing, sales and reservations support for cruise-tour vacations to travel agencies, wholesalers of destination-based travel and consumers in North America.

In changes related to the appointment, the company is downsizing its Fort Lauderdale office. Jim Applebaum, vp sales and marketing for the past year, and Susan Lethbridge, director of business development, are leaving.

Lethbridge, with Voyages to Antiquity since its inception, has been pivotal in establishing the company in the educational market.

Guest services director Andrea Corman and her team will continue in the Fort Lauderdale office, along with the global accounting group led by Jim Winch.

'We have been extremely successful in establishing our destination-focused cruise-tour product in the alumni and adult learning group markets in North America, and with our new relationship with GVG we believe we can introduce our style of cruising to a far wider audience of specialist travel agents and their enrichment-focused travel customers,' said David Yellow, managing director of Voyages to Antiquity.

He told Seatrade Insider the structure of the business has changed dramatically over the last couple of years with more than 65% of bookings now coming from outside of the US so the restructuring is in line with this trend.

Yellow added that the company will continue working directly with its established contacts in the alumni and adult learning group business.

Voyages to Antiquity hopes to 'increase our visibility in the travel agent community by teaming up with GVG and benefiting from the economy of scale this new relationship will give us plus benefiting from the wealth of experience the company has with Tom Russell and David Giersdorf at the helm,' Yellow elaborated.

Giersdorf, president and ceo of Global Voyages Group, said Voyages to Antiquity's in-depth itineraries and comprehensive experiences set it apart in the specialty cruise business.

'We are honored to be partnering with this fine company and look forward to applying our full efforts and energies toward effectively expanding Voyages to Antiquity’s presence and penetration in North America,' he added.

Voyages to Antiquity's Aegean Odyssey operates destination-focused cruises to the classical civilizations of the Mediterranean in the spring, summer and fall and to Africa, Southeast Asia and India in the winter months.