Elliot Bloom

Director of Communications
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Elliot Bloom served as Senior Vice President, Chief Communications Officer for Travelport Ltd. from May 2006 through December 2008. While at Travelport, he was responsible for corporate communications, corporate branding, digital media, media relations, crisis management, financial public relations, M&A communications, and employee communications.

Travelport is one of the world’s largest travel conglomerates.  The company operates three primary businesses –Travelport GDS, a global distribution system business; an IT services and software business; and GTA, a group travel and wholesale hotel business.  Travelport GDS comprises the Galileo and Worldspan brands and includes Business Intelligence Services, a data analysis business. The IT services and software business hosts mission critical applications and provides business solutions for major airlines.  Travelport also owns approximately 48% of Orbitz Worldwide (NYSE: OWW), a leading global online travel company. With on-going annual revenues of approximately $2.7 billion, Travelport operates in 145 countries and has approximately 6,000 employees.

Prior to Travelport, Elliot served as senior vice president of corporate communications for leading travel and real estate conglomerate, Cendant Corporation, from the company’s inception in December, 1997 until its breakup in August, 2006.  Cendant, with annual revenues of $19 billion and 90,000 employees in 110 countries, owned and operated well-known global brands such as Avis, Budget, Orbitz.com, Cheaptickets.com, ebookers.com, Galileo, Century 21, Coldwell Banker, ERA, PHH Mortgage, Ramada, Wyndham Resorts, Days Inn, Howard Johnson and Super 8.  Elliot joined HFS, Cendant’s predecessor, in April 1997 as vice president of corporate communications. 



In 1994, Elliot moved from Southern California to Chicago to accept a position at Dun and Bradstreet’s ACNielsen Marketing Research unit as vice president of U.S. communications and advertising. He played a key role in the 1995 breakup of Dun and Bradstreet, and specifically in the spin off (IPO) of AC Nielsen. 

From 1982 – 1992, Elliot held senior communications positions within PepsiCo’s beverage, snack food and restaurant divisions—Pepsi-Cola Company, Frito-Lay, Inc. and Taco Bell Corporation. While at Taco Bell, he and CEO, John Martin played an integral role in the development, implementation and communication of the widely recognized “Value Menu” marketing program in 1989.  

Taco Bell’s Value Menu initiative brought about a paradigm shift in the fast food sector.  In a book about the fast food industry by Greg Critser (Fat Land, Houghton Mifflin, 2003), Elliot was referred to as a “marketing whiz” for his work on Taco Bell’s Value Menu.  In August 1988, Elliot convinced Taco Bell management to sponsor the first American/Soviet baseball tournament.  The goodwill tournament, played in Moscow, Kiev and Tbilisi, received widespread media coverage and helped to brand Taco Bell as both a socially conscious corporation and a mainstream fast food chain.  Today, Taco Bell is a sponsor of Major League Baseball.

Early in his career, Elliot was a trade journalist and held senior editorial positions at two publications specializing in the consumer packaged goods industry – Private Label Magazine, which he helped to found in 1978; and one of the oldest and most respected industry publications in the United States, Beverage World.  Beverage World’s predecessor publication, National Bottler’s Gazette, was founded in March 1882.

Elliot is an avid long-distance runner who has completed 37 marathons.  He serves on the boards of the Achilles Track Club and After-School All Stars of New York City; non-profit, 501©(3) organizations that support handicapped athletes and provide after school programming for inner city youth, respectively. He also served as a director on the board of the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) from 1994 to 2004. FRAC is a non-profit organization focused on the eradication of hunger and poverty in the United States.  He has been recognized on numerous occasions by local chapters of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) for outstanding work in public relations and communications.

Elliot earned his B.A. in social sciences from the State University of New York at Buffalo.