Kate Scopetti Honored with the 2023 TODAY! Award

Kate Scopetti, President, MARS and Companies, was announced as the winner of the 2023 TODAY! Award at the recent ABA Marketplace in Detroit.

The award—presented by Groups Today—honors an ABA member who has demonstrated they have what it takes to make an impact in the group travel industry today, specifically related to relevancy, impact, growth, advocacy and innovation.

Scopetti, who had her first product development project in the late '80s, says it's truly an honor to have been chosen for the award.

"Working in this industry from the very beginning has been a labor of love, so I'm very pleased that my efforts have been noticed and appreciated," Scopetti said, crediting her ability to be forward thinking and innately creative as a reason for being able to identify trends and where the market is headed.

"I have a voracious appetite for exploration, especially to discover new experiences, cultures, and mostly sharing the life stories of others with each of their unique impacts to our collective world," Scopetti continued. "It's enriching and eye opening, and a big part of my passion is to bring these life-changing experiences into our tour programs and share them with others. I have an internal drive to create new and unique touring experiences. Innovation is a direct result of this drive."

A focus on partnerships—both with clients and suppliers—has been a large part of how Scopetti views advocating for her business and the industry as a whole.

"We promote MARS as an extension of our clients and our suppliers work team, helping us all to grow and advance our respective businesses and interests," Scopetti said. "Creating new experiences requires embracing those people and places that may not have ever known about or understood our group tour business and its special requirements, details and idiosyncrasies. This mandates that MARS educate and engage new businesses, places and people into the group tour business."

There are several ways Scopetti and her team ensure they remain relevant in the industry and in the eyes of clients.

"At MARS, we are constantly creating new and unique products to promote and share with our clients as potential new product lines to add to their respective portfolios," Scopetti explained. "We promote them and make sure our client base is aware of these new tours and opportunities. We create new ways to experience places they may have already visited and find hidden treasures and stories that are a bit off the mainstream tour inclusions; something new ... a discovery for their clients, a surprise element."

Scopetti hopes to continue to embody the spirit of the TODAY! Award in the future by continuing the creative and custom approach she and her team take pride in, continuing to build new and strong partnerships, and further harnessing the talent MARS has within their tour planning and operations team to embrace and create programs of their own.

"We are very fortunate to have a huge amount of collective tour expertise in diverse areas of the country and internationally, which now includes the West, the Heartland and the South," Scopetti said. "Of course, the Mid-Atlantic Region is still our stronghold, as that's where the companies' roots lie."

Join us in congratulating Scopetti on earning this well-deserved recognition!

To learn more about Scopetti and her industry journey, be sure to read her expanded profile in the upcoming May/June issue of Groups Today.

Written by Sarah Suydam, Managing Editor of Groups Today.

 Photo courtesy of Kate Scopetti.