Women in Travel: Transat Distribution Canada's Louise Fecteau

Louise Fecteau, Director General of Transat Distribution Canada (TDC), graduated from the Quebec College of Tourism in travel agency management (class of 1984) and has been particularly successful in the industry.

Celebrating 25 years of career at Transat, she replaced Nathalie Boyer at the head of TDC in August 2019,one of the largest networks of travel agencies in the country. Growing up she wanted to become a teacher, but her entrepreneurial streak quickly took over. She branched off into tourism, an area that attracted her by the lure of traveling. Quickly, she realized that she wanted to be in business and have her own.

"At the time, I had to go to school, but my mother fell seriously ill," she says. I was in Beauce and I said: "In the meantime, I'm going to take a tourism course, because it was much shorter and I had to stay close to home to be with my mother." I would have had to move for 3-4 years to Quebec City at the time to follow my teaching training and I could not, so I said: "I will wait and postpone the project", but ultimately, I never did. "

She went to take her course in tourism at the Collège de tourisme de Québec, which today no longer exists. "At the time, it was overseen by Bernard Beauchamp, who was at Tours Chanteclerc. After my course, I started working as an adviser at Intair Voyages, in Beauce, for five years and, very quickly, over the years, I bought three Club Voyages agencies with someone else, who is no more in the field today. This is how I started: as an agency co-owner. "

Meanwhile, Louise had a life-changing encounter on a plane when she met her future husband, who worked for Air Canada at the time. She met him on an Air Canada Montreal-Orlando flight when they were sitting next to each other. "The worst part is that I was not even supposed to sit there! Someone came up to me and said, "My family is here, could you change your boarding pass?" I said yes because I was alone and I found myself sitting next to him."

That meeting changed her life and pushed her to sell her agencies and move to Laval to be with her spouse. After 25 years of marriage, she does not regret her decision. "If it hadn't been for this meeting, I might still be in Beauce and I would probably have bought other agencies."

"When I moved to Laval, I wanted to buy agencies, but as soon as I moved, I came to work for TDC (formerly Consultour) in an agency that belonged to them, with the idea of buying the agency. Gradually, they gave me lots of new challenges and responsibilities. They took me to the head office of Transat ... so I never bought other agencies, I stayed with TDC.""

After working for six years as an agency manager at Club Voyages Mer et Monde in Laval, Louise arrived at Transat's head office in 2000, where she held the position of chief marketing officer for Consultour for three years. She became Regional Chief for the Quebec region for two years, then Director of Operations and Member Services for the Quebec region for five years.

One of the highlights of her career was undoubtedly her time at Tours Mont-Royal (TMR) in 2012. Transat had just bought the tour operator and there was a sales and marketing assistant position available.

"It was really me who raised my hand and went to see Yves Lalumière at the time to tell him that I wanted to go to TMR. I said, "I want to understand the Tour Operator. side. I need to understand that and for me, it was the best school at TMR because it was a small supplier so I was able to touch on a lot of things and learn quickly. It really changed my life because I moved on to the side of tour operators; I had no experience in this area at the time. "

Louise Fecteau served as Vice-President of Sales and Marketing for TMR for two years, then, when the tour operator merged with Transat, she moved back to the distribution side, this time as marketing director of Transat Tours, from 2014 to 2019, before agreeing to replace Nathalie Boyer last August as CEO of TDC.

Louise Fecteau never felt that being a woman prevented her from advancing in her career.

"I never felt that I was privileged or not because I was a woman, even less at Transat. Travel is a women's industry, so has there been an evolution? Yes, there are probably more women in the management of companies than in the 1980s. Annick Guérard is a good example. At Transat, there are a lot of women who occupy management positions, such as Geneviève LeBrun and Lina De Cesare at the time, co-founder."

"The fact remains that yes, even if there has been an evolution, there is always room to have more women in management positions, but I would tell you that there are still quite a few. It's an industry in which it's more natural to see women in leadership positions compared to others who are a little bit more like "boy clubs".

When asked what is the key to her success, Louise Fecteau replied without hesitation: working hard, knowing how to surround yourself with a competent team, and ... raising your hand and coming forward when necessary.

"It's important to say it when you want something and not to wait for things to come out on their own. There is no gift from heaven. Often people ask themselves, "why didn't they think of me for such a position?", when they did not even express their interest in the position in the first place. Even if the position is not available, you have to tell your supervisor, "In a few years, this is where I would like to be." Already, someone knows that you are interested; it's always better than if you don't say it. "

"The day I raised my hand to say," I want to go to TMR because I want to learn something else, "I knew I was taking a risk because I could have messed up. "I insisted that I wanted to go to TMR despite the fact that I didn't know much about the field of T.O. I wanted to learn, but I also knew that I wanted to bring other expertise to the company."

"I think everyone has the ability to achieve their dreams, but you have to be able to say what you want, act on it and do the right thing."

In addition to her time at TMR, an achievement that makes Louise particularly proud is the fact that she helped to establish service charges in travel agencies in the 1990s.

"I started to train travel counselors on the importance of invoicing professional fees for their time in 1996. We did this throughout the TDC network in Quebec and it was I who implemented this project . Even today, counselors have training on this subject; I am really proud of that. Otherwise, in general, my ability to surround myself with good teams would be my greatest pride. "