About us, the Ellison Story

Our story began in Exeter, Ontario in 1980. Doug Ellison, at that time, a secondary school teacher who had developed a love for travel and saw it as important part of education – left his teaching career and opened a business running student tours. Four decades later, Doug and the Ellison Team have expanded into other travel divisions and 3 office locations (Exeter and London, ON; North Vancouver, BC) employing over 90 people today across Canada … and after 40 years, haven’t looked back! Now into the second generation of the family business, Marcie Ellison Outerbridge, Paulo and Michelle Branco are taking over the leadership of the Ellison Team – sharing Doug’s love of people and places, and his vision of opening minds and hearts through travel.

As a Full-Service Travel Agency and Tour Operator, Ellison Travel & Tours is a unique travel company – with in-house brands focused on Vacations & Cruises, Business Travel, Customized Group Tours including Student Travel. Ellison is one of the few Canadian owned and operated companies that specialize in fully customized tours – typically customizing over 600 tours each year both internationally and within Canada. With divisions curating special interest tours such as Women’s Travel, Senior’s Travel, Musical Performance, Culinary & Wine, History, Battlefield & Remembrance and other areas of interest – the depth of expertise of our travel professionals is unparalleled, and our passion for travel is contagious.

Ellison is one of the largest Canadian travel agencies, loyal to its roots and has all the advantages of a small-town business: friendly, personal attention, long-serving employees and excellent service. We are a company that prides itself on our people and relationships, our commitment to safe and responsible travel and enterprise, and our ability to adapt and innovate through continuous advancement of technology and forward thinking.

We hope to share our passion for travel, people and places with you.

Opening Minds & Hearts Through Travel

OUR VALUES

As a business, we strive to ensure an inclusive, diverse and equitable environment for our staff, and promote the importance of health and well-being of our people, our local economy and the broader community. We take our role seriously – as an employer, travel service provider, local business community and supporter, and global travel industry partner.

OUR MISSION: To provide a seamless travel experience at great value for our clients, while investing in continuous growth and development of our people and processes.

Excellence

At Ellison, we live up to our international reputation through our commitment to customer care, value for your dollar and risk management – before, during and after your travel experience.

Life-Long Learning

Education is the foundation that Doug Ellison built this business on when he opened in 1980. Every day, we honour the importance of lifelong learning through travel, through sharing our wealth of industry knowledge, and continuous learning and professional development.

Integrity

At Ellison, we do the right thing. We do what we say, and say what we do.

Stewardship

Ellison is committed to sustainable travel, business and community. We strive to be responsible global citizens – socially and environmentally conscious of our precious planet, its people and its resources.

Ongoing Improvement

We value the continuous improvement of ourselves, our business and its technology and processes. We recognize that ongoing adaptation is vital to our continued personal and business growth and success.

Nurtured Relationships

Our success is built on our trusted relationships – with our employees, our clients, suppliers and partners. We are bigger than ourselves!