Classic Vacations is celebrating 45 years in business this year, and CEO Melissa Krueger says the company proudly retains its “entrepreneurial, start-up spirit.” Her team is a reflective one, regularly asking themselves — and others — not only how to make their business a better one, but how to further support all the players involved in it.
“We spend a lot of time thinking about innovation, and how we can best serve our advisors and suppliers,” Krueger said. “At the end of the day, it’s all about serving them. Strategically, we are always looking at new products, services, destinations, technology and accessibility, and [are aiming to] strengthen the sense of community that we have built over the last 45 years.”
We spoke with Krueger to learn more about new and pending moves from Classic Vacations, including AI tools for advisors and a new partnership with Ryan Seacrest.
You’ve said that Classic Vacations has “a start-up spirit,” with an eye on innovation. Can you give an example of this?
Most recently, we launched Beyond, our hotel booking platform. It already has more than 500,000 hotels and 275,000 vacation rentals, and the response and growth has been really encouraging.
We worked closely with our travel advisors to co-architect the features and benefits of the Beyond platform, and it’s paying off — it’s fast, easy, flexible and intuitive. Giving advisors the ability to book up to eight hotels in a single booking has been a game-changer, and we’re just getting started. To encourage advisors to try it out, we’re offering monthly incentives totaling more than $5,000 in gift cards in just three months.
Any other ideas in the works?
We’re also very interested in how artificial intelligence (AI) can help advisors build their businesses. Next week, we’ll start beta testing Ask AImee, our new travel content generator using ChatGPT, to assist advisors with hotel recommendations, itinerary suggestions and more. We’re excited to see how advisors use AImee to support their sales process, and we’ll be learning and adjusting along the way to make AImee the first and most useful AI tool for travel advisors in the market.
Another recent company move was partnering with Ryan Seacrest. What can we expect from this collaboration?
We are really excited about this. Ryan Seacrest is a winner. He is the most prolific host on television and is extremely passionate about travel and vacations and what they mean to him and his loved ones. Ryan will work with us to support our global expansion, and we will collaborate with him on innovative marketing, products and services to add value to our robust community of travel advisors — all of that is about serving this community and architecting the future of travel together.
Ryan will work with us to support our global expansion, and we will collaborate with him on innovative marketing, products and services to add value to our robust community of travel advisors — all of that is about serving this community and architecting the future of travel together.
Our mission at Classic is to bring people closer together one vacation at a time. To do this well, it’s also about great storytelling and thinking outside the box. Ryan is a marquee storyteller, and Classic has a 45-year history of curating content; content, in our case, is traveling around the world, experiencing incredible destinations and activities and making memories with loved ones.
Classic Vacations’ E3 event is coming up at Secrets in Punta Mita, Mexico. What should advisors know about this offering?
We launched E3 (Elite, Education, Experience) in 2017, because we wanted a conference and training event — better described as a highly curated engagement event — focused on investing not just in the travel advisor, but in the advisor as an entrepreneur and a business owner entering into our industry.
We saw a large number of new advisors who were eager to learn and willing to invest time and money for more involvement. The current offerings for industry events included large conferences, award incentives, fam trips and the million-dollar producer networking, but there was a gap we needed to fill for those who are new to industry and new to luxury. We learned from conversations with advisors that many were in their second or third career, and looking to build partnerships and gather best practices from subject-matter experts. We were able to bring all these pieces together.
The event is entirely based on the individual attendees, and we customize the event to suit them. We curate a diverse group from different parts of the country, niche travel components, age groups and experience levels. Because the event is “Elite,” it is restricted to 40 qualified advisers. Attendees find a safe sense of community and peer-to-peer engagement not often found at other industry events. Now in our fifth year, E3 remains exclusive to Classic and our top preferred partners. Content includes everything from “Creating Connection and Storytelling” to “Brand Authenticity and Client Experience Workflow.” E3 will continue to evolve as our attendees and the travel industry change.
We are living through unprecedented times in this industry, with record-breaking travel numbers and travel-related spending. What does this surge look like for the Classic Vacations team?
Our business and culture have never been stronger. With three distinct business channels (FIT, Groups and Beyond), our brand continually delivers on trust, reliability, high quality and high value. We are able to support the businesses of both our customers and suppliers.
Over the last year, we have transformed the contact center experience; it now does a much better job meeting the needs of today’s advisor. This includes expanded days of operation; how reservations can be communicated, serviced and supported; launching an exclusive Europe desk that averages a two- to four-hour turnaround time on quote requests; and a return to 24/7 customer service.
Twenty-seven years ago, we bought a DMC in Greece, and that business has expanded to include 21 countries, 350 hotels and transportation (including private car service and rail), as well as a robust line-up of tours and activities.
We have redefined our Europe offerings to be even more specialized. Twenty-seven years ago, we bought a DMC in Greece, and that business has expanded to include 21 countries, 350 hotels and transportation (including private car service and rail), as well as a robust line-up of tours and activities. And it is still headquartered in Athens.
Not only have we expanded our product footprint in Europe this year by adding to our product team in Italy, but all of our customer service expansion in 2023 has also been in Europe. We have also added more moderately priced hotels to our select portfolio in order to fulfill the demand to serve more budgets.
We were recently nominated Best FIT Tour Operator by Virtuoso, and as you know, we received the WAVE Award of Best Tour Operator, Europe from TravelAge West readers for the second year in a row. We take immense pride in these nominations and awards — and my team has earned them.
Our 45-year mark gives perspective and underlines the importance of relationships. We are grateful to have long-term relationships with so many of our advisors, consortia and hotel partners. And now is a great time to say, “thank you.”
