Stanley Tollman, who built a travel empire and opened the first The Travel Corporation (TTC) office in Canada in 1968, died last week at the age of 91 following a battle with cancer. Celebrated as one of the architects of the global tourism industry and a devoted philanthropist, Tollman was chairman of TTC, which celebrated its centenary in 2020.
The company counts more than 40 brands in its roster – among them Trafalgar, Contiki, Insight, Luxury Gold, African Travel, Costsaver, Uniworld River Cruises, and Red Carnation Hotels, as well Ashford Castle and the Bouchard Finlayson Vineyards in South Africa, amongst others – and has more than 10,000 employees in 70 countries worldwide.
Born in South Africa, Tollman closed the final days of his life in France surrounded by his close-knit family, including current TTC chief executive officer Brett Tollman.
A man from very humble origins, Tollman was born in the small fishing village of Paternoster in the Western Cape in 1930. His pioneering spirit and love for hospitality were rooted in his first home – the family’s modest hotel in Paternoster, where the lavatories were outdoors and a young Tollman roamed barefoot.
At the age of eight, Tollman’s family moved to Johannesburg where his parents acquired another hotel. This early, evolving exposure to the world of hospitality shaped Tollman’s work ethic, curiosity, and a passion for all things culinary, embedding itself into an ambition to become a hotelier himself, and ignited his lifelong passions.
In 1954 Stanley Tollman married Beatrice Lurie, beginning an extraordinary love story, and partnership that has lasted almost 70 years. Their journey in hospitality began right away, when in 1954 they used their wedding money to purchase their first business venture, the Nugget Hotel in Johannesburg.
As a young hotelier, Tollman worked tirelessly, driven by a relentless pursuit of perfection and a hunger to have an impact in South Africa and, if possible, the world. Never one to overlook any detail or take for granted any customer, the tenet ‘driven by service’ was embedded in all aspects of his business’ delivery of guest experiences. This approach would become a hallmark of his life’s work, which grew beyond hotels to all facets of the travel industry.
With this ethos in place, the young Tollmans soon became some of the leading hoteliers of South Africa. Their Hyde Park Hotel put them on the global stage by being the first to bring world famous artists to South Africa in the mid 1950s. The hotel was to become the go-to-choice of famous visitors to South Africa including Marlene Dietrich and Maurice Chevalier. The Hyde Park would also become the home base for film crews at the time, including Stanley Baker’s historic film “Zulu” starring Michael Cain. Live entertainment at the hotel night club, The Colony, brought top-flight entertainers to Africa for the first time.
This was elevated further when the Tollmans created the first five star and all-suite hotel in South Africa, the Tollman Towers, raising the bar for the South African tourist industry to new highs, with a signature ‘Tollman’ quality of guest experience.
Simultaneously, the evolving interests of Tollman across segments of the tourism industry and global travel markets came together with the creation of The Travel Corporation, which included the purchase of Trafalgar Tours, a pioneering business and brand that defined Tollman’s love of international travel.
As a man of values, Tollman was unable to accept the racist apartheid policies being enforced in South Africa at the time. He was one of the first to boldly invite black guests and performers into his luxury hotels despite the ruling government’s policies. Importantly, he championed a program of training promising young black people in the hospitality business, unlocking employment opportunities until then reserved for whites. Providing opportunities, giving back, and promoting from within would continue to be an important and enduring practice in all Tollman companies. However, government policies forced him to shift his focus beyond South African borders, and together with his wife and four children, he left South Africa in 1976.
Rebuilding in England and then the United States, Tollman’s influence and impact continued to expand in the travel industry over the decades through a portfolio of 40 award-winning brands that carried over 2 million travellers annually worldwide pre-pandemic.
Canada
That included building a successful organization in Canada over the past 53 years, establishing the country as the third largest travel market for TTC.
Tollman’s special affinity for Canada was developed during his first trip abroad as a young man – to visit his relatives in Hamilton, Ont. – where he recognized the wanderlust of Canadians, eventually to return to open Trafalgar Tours as TTC’s first office in the country in Toronto in 1968 and travelling across the country to personally host travel presentations for travel agents.
With the success of Trafalgar, Tollman later purchased and brought youth travel company Contiki to Canada in 1989, followed by premium guided tour brand, Insight Vacations in 1994. 2003 saw the acquisition of the Canadian-based Africa specialist Lion World Travel and he was also instrumental in bringing luxury river cruise line Uniworld to the Canadian market in 2004.
But throughout his life, Tollman remained a humble hotelier at heart. His signature red carnation lapel pin – the symbol of his international boutique collection of luxury properties – remained until his final days, as did his love of animals, sharing his passion for wildlife, nature, and beautifully curated experiences with his many friends and family. He was renowned for his generosity, sense of humour and as a master of the one-liner.
Tollman was a larger-than-life bon vivant character, a true statesman with a dedication to his family and business that is deemed exemplary by his peers in the industry. Though never one to court the spotlight, he counted global figures, such as politicians, movie stars, and prominent business leaders as some of his closest friends. Over the years his brands garnered numerous awards from prestigious publications such as Travel and Leisure and Condé Nast Traveller. In 2015, he was awarded a lifetime achievement award by Travel Weekly.
A true innovator and entrepreneur throughout his career, Tollman was continuously on the search for bold new ideas and initiatives in both travel and hospitality. This can be seen in his sponsorship of art and culture in South Africa through coordination of the first international tours of foreign artists to South Africa.
His footprint in bringing an understanding of local Indigenous people in countries visited, by partnering with them to enable guests to have a deeper authentic understanding, is an important pillar that was pioneered by the TTC brands. In 2003 the Tollman Award for the Visual Arts was established as an initiative in the development of the arts in South Africa.
Tollman was also a champion for sustainable tourism long before ‘sustainability’ became a global, industry-wide call to action. During TTC’s years of step-change expansion, Tollman was unwilling to focus purely on business growth. Acutely aware of the need to protect the people and places visited by his portfolio of companies, Tollman set up and chaired The Travel Corporation Conservation Foundation, a not-for-profit focused on activation of community and conservation projects and partnerships.
Renamed The TreadRight Foundation in 2012, today it supports over 55 projects worldwide, has developed a 5-Year Sustainability Strategy directly aligned to the UNSDGs (United Nations Sustainable Development Goals) directly engaging all TTC brands in measurable efforts to embed sustainability across the business, and is championing a traveller-facing campaign (MAKE TRAVEL MATTER) to raise the awareness and engagement of travellers in more responsible travel choices.
Tollman’s life has not been without its struggles, as revealed in his 2012 autobiography “Recollections of a Lucky Man.”
According to Tollman, his greatest legacy had been his family and today, three generations of Tollmans are involved in the business.
“One of the most amazing figures in travel and tourism has left us,” says Sir Geoffrey Kent,” founder and CEO of luxury travel company Abercrombie & Kent. “Stan and his lovely family were always on the cutting edge in the travel industry and continually creating new products run with consummate style. They made so many people so very happy.”