G Adventures has appointed Rachel Coffey as director of sales, UK and Ireland, and promoted Stu Darnley to the newly created position of national sales manager, UK.

The changes come as G Adventures experiences continued growth in agency sales in the past 12 months. The promotion of Darnley takes the UK sales team to 11.

Brian Young, managing director, G Adventures, said:

“Rachel Coffey is a natural leader and she comes to G Adventures with a wide range of experience in travel industry sales and management. Most importantly, she has a huge passion for G Adventures’ style of travel, and what we stand for in terms of giving back to the places and people we visit.

“Stu Darnley is a G Adventures success story, having worked his way up from our reservations team – the Boombox – to become a global purpose specialist in the outside sales team. Stu lives and breathes G Adventures’ purpose, and combines this with in-depth product knowledge and enthusiasm for our trade partner relationships.”

Rachel has spent the past 13 years of her career at Virgin Atlantic, where she held positions in both marketing and sales, and spent time as the country manager for West Africa, based in Nigeria. She most recently held the title of head of business readiness.

“I have travelled with G Adventures nine times in the past five years, and during my travels I was struck by the strong sense of purpose and mission for travel to be a force for good,” says Coffey.

“I’m excited to get out on the road with my team and meet all the wonderful agents who sell our tours, and to empower them to engage more of their customers to choose G Adventures and have a life-changing experience just like I did.”

Rachel and Stu’s appointments are effective immediately.