Meet the team
Who we are
Travellers Group is guided by a board and executive team of experienced leaders in the hospitality, management, and commercial real estate sectors.
Craig Smith
MANAGING DIRECTOR
Craig brings to Travellers Group a wealth of experience across the hospitality & tourism, accommodation/residential lifestyle services and asset management sectors.
With a career spanning over thirty-five years, Craig has extensive senior leadership experience managing multi-disciplinary teams within medium to large-scale mixed-use resort/hotel properties which has seen him working both domestically and internationally for world-renowned hotel operators including Accor, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Mõvenpick Hotels & Resorts, Minor Hotels and Mantra Group.
Some of Craig’s many career highlights include being appointed as Area General Manager, Hawai’i to transition Mantra Group’s entry into the US with the acquisition of the 1,176-condominium hotel, Ala Moana Hotel by Mantra based in Honolulu. He also led the implementation of the client operations/asset management division for IFA Hotels & Resorts, an international leader in the development of premier integrated and mixed-use hotel and tourism resort projects and at the time the largest foreign investor on the Palm Jumeriah, Dubai. Craig’s most recent role was Area General Manager with Minor Hotels where he was responsible for the overall operating performance of the company’s thirteen Brisbane-based properties.
He is a passionate, seasoned operations professional with a proven track record of successfully unlocking the asset value of a business whilst building trusted relationships with all key stakeholders.
Craig holds a Bachelor of Arts – Hospitality Management (equivalency) from Cornell University and has held several other professional appointments chairing an Australian based regional tourism and development authority as well as sitting as a Director/Treasurer of Board of Directors within a large condominium home owners association.
Alex Dignam
DIRECTOR
Alex is a corporate finance and capital markets executive with 17 years’ experience gained through various roles at Deutsche Bank and UBS Investment Bank in Sydney.
His most recent role was as Managing Director, Co-Head of Equity Capital Markets at UBS for Australia and New Zealand.
Throughout his investment banking career, Alex worked on over 130 transactions, advising small, mid-cap and large companies in relation to acquisitions, divestments, capital structure changes, equity and debt raisings as well as equity derivatives. This advice has spanned a broad range of sectors, including industrials, financials, infrastructure, energy, resources and real estate.