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Industry pays tribute to Colin Heal at special memorial service
Travel industry colleagues of Colin Heal gathered in London yesterday for a memorial service for the former Worldchoice president.
Around 100 people joined Heal’s family at a service at St Clement Danes Church on The Strand, followed by a reception at The RAF Club on Piccadilly.
Heal, in his 80s, collapsed and died at the Travel Network Group’s annual conference in Slovenia May.
The night before, Heal had been at the welcome party chatting to delegates and dancing with his wife Valerie.
At yesterday’s service, industry colleagues, including Gary Lewis, group managing director of the Travel Network Group and ITT president Trevor Harding, paid tribute to the former RAF group captain.
"A gentleman, a professional, passionate about everything he did, a man with a stamina for pursuing what he thought was the right thing to do for Worldchoice and the Independent travel market," said Lewis.
"Colin was – without doubt – one of our industry’s great leaders and influential personalities and I know, with his sense of humour and love of press coverage opportunities, he would have been delighted with his final conference moment."
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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