Case Study, Group Travel: Cerruti

How TravelPerk made Cerruti’s trip to London Fashion Week a resounding success

A rebirth for the brand, a significant travel challenge

Cerruti 1881 is a luxury ready-to-wear brand for men, established by Nino Cerruti in Paris in the 1960s. Their sister brand, Kent & Curwen, was established in London in 1926. It was a favorite of the British royal family during the 20th century. Both brands are now owned by the BIEM.L.FDLKK Group, a China-based apparel manufacturer.

With a multinational presence spanning Europe and Asia, Cerruti employees frequently need to travel globally. In the fast-paced world of high fashion, designers need to be physically present at fashion shows to present their products on the runway.

Under Chief Creative Officer Daniel Kearns, the two brands planned a major relaunch with new men’s and women’s collections for autumn 2024. After a quiet period, they wanted to make a big splash with a weeklong fashion show in London. More than half of the company’s employees needed to travel to London to prepare for the fashion show. Travel managers had to coordinate more than 30 people’s transportation and schedules.

This was an exciting and high-pressure moment, but managing bookings was presenting a challenge. Emilie Pei, Cerruti’s admin manager, was helping employees book all the tickets manually. The process was very difficult and time consuming.

“It was such a headache for us to collect everyone's schedules and then place the orders for each of them… just for the train, it was already a huge pain.”

Emilie Pei, Admin & Operations Manager

Easy onboarding and training with TravelPerk

With the summer months quickly coming up, the Cerruti team needed urgent assistance to book their travel and event plans before employees left for their annual vacations. To make matters even more complicated, the staff member who’d formerly been managing hotel bookings at Cerruti resigned just before the summer—so the team needed a quick and easy solution.

Luckily, TravelPerk was able to help. After onboarding the Cerruti team to the TravelPerk platform, they offered training to the employees so they could effectively use the software to manage their trips. When it came to hotel bookings, TravelPerk staff helped Cerruti quickly search for and book exactly what they needed just in time for the event in September.

“We had continuous communication with the account manager from TravelPerk, and support from the hotel reservation team. They helped us search based on our requirements, and gave us many options to choose from. So yeah, it's really saved us.”

Emilie Pei, Admin & Operations Manager

An intuitive platform that’s “very easy to use”

To help employees understand how to use TravelPerk, Cerruti offered them an online training, plus a recorded video of the training and self-learning documents for those who weren’t able to attend. But even employees who missed the training said the TravelPerk platform was easy to navigate.

“They don't feel challenged to use the platform as a newbie. They just put in their email address, receive the pin code login, fill out their information, and that's all. They say it's like other platforms they frequently use, so it's quite easy.”

Emilie Pei, Admin & Operations Manager

24/7 support means more traveler autonomy, smoother trips, and peace of mind

While the fashion show was Cerruti’s first major event, it wasn’t the first time the company had to arrange business travel for a group.

In the past, these trips used to be booked manually. This led to some difficult situations, like when a team of four people was traveling to Hainan for an exhibition. On their way back to Paris via Shanghai, they got stuck at the airport due to a flight delay.

Unable to make changes to their booking themselves, they had to contact Cerruti’s head office, who reached out to the travel agency they’d booked with. Due to the time difference and the distance, communication was slow, and travelers were stuck waiting at the airport without knowing what to do.

Fortunately, with TravelPerk, this is no longer a problem. Employees now have access to 24/7 customer support, so they can get help exactly when they need it. Travel managers can also easily keep track of travelers using TravelPerk’s duty of care features.

“Ever since we started using TravelPerk, I’ve never received an urgent call from employees to save them from a situation at the airport. They’re able to manage everything by themselves now.”

Emilie Pei, Admin & Operations Manager

Guest access for freelancers, so the whole team is included

Another feature Cerruti loves about TravelPerk is the ability to add freelancers and external collaborators to the platform. The company works with freelancers in Italy and across France who occasionally need to travel to headquarters in Paris for a meeting or activity.

Previously, freelancers would share their plans with Cerruti staff via email and they would manage bookings manually, which was a headache. Now, Emilie is able to easily add them to the platform with guest access.

A weight off the finance team’s shoulders

Cerruti’s finance team appreciates TravelPerk’s centralized invoicing. Rather than combing through many different payments to understand the cost of a trip, they simply receive one well-formatted invoice from TravelPerk every two weeks.

In addition, they have access to useful analytics insights on the platform’s back end. If certain teams are booking last minute or are regularly over budget, they’re able to easily flag and deal with that issue.

“I would say that not only does it save us time on booking, it also helps save a lot of energy for the finance and admin teams from a management perspective.”

Emilie Pei, Admin & Operations Manager

So what’s next for Cerruti?

They plan to continue running their biannual fashion shows. In 2026 they’ll be hosting some special events in the UK for Kent & Curwen’s 100-year anniversary.
With exciting potential collaborations on the horizon, the team will definitely have some more occasions to travel!