Classic Vacations Melissa Krueger on her vision for the company: Travel Weekly

Last year, luxury vacation wholesale packager Classic Vacations was sold by its parent company, Expedia, to the private equity firm Najafi Cos. In February, Melissa Krueger, formerly Classic’s vice president and general manager, became its CEO after David Hu stepped down. Krueger spoke with Travel Weekly senior editor Nicole Edenedo to talk about the company’s new owners, challenges that Classic is facing and her vision for the company.

Q: Najafi’s investment portfolio includes real estate, an NBA team, even a television and film production company, but not much travel. What is its interest in Classic Vacations?

A: They’re learning about us, but they are astute. They are not there to tell me how to run the business, but they are like having the best management consultant company in the world. We are surrounded by just a group of really smart, thoughtful, aggressive businesspeople, and that’s exciting for us because that’s motivating for my whole team. I’ve definitely seen a resurgence of energy and excitement and enthusiasm from my vice president and my CFO. When you work with a private equity firm, the metabolic rate goes up; there’s an energy behind that. The possibilities are endless.

Q: Travel restrictions and entry requirements are easing globally, Hawaii included. But industrywide staffing shortages, supply chain woes and the potential for more Covid-related disruptions remain. What are some of the obstacles Classic Vacations is facing in the midst of all this, and how will it overcome them?

A: I think that coming out of Covid, everybody wanted to work from home. And we were able to turn on a dime [allowing employees to do that], which is great. But are we as high functioning as we need to be? So we still need to stabilize, we still need to standardize our practices; that has my attention. I think that that’s an obstacle, but I also think that’s a really good opportunity, and we’re really looking at degrees of flexibility. To be the best employer, you have to have the best employees, and if you want the best employees, you need to open up options to where and how they want to live their lives.

Staffing shortages, that’s definitely top of mind. I think I have a really good opportunity as the ultimate leader in our organization to make sure our culture is one where every employee feels fueled because of what we’re delivering to the customer.

Q: What are your plans for Classic Vacations’ future?

A: We’re working right now to make sure that we are showing up for our customers, how they need us to show up for them. Customer-driven innovation is very, very important to me. We only sell to travel advisors. We’re servicing baby boomers, we’re servicing Gen X, we’re servicing millennials and we’re servicing Gen Z. We’ve kind of been servicing them all in the same way, and that’s wrong. They all want to communicate differently. So I’m really having my team dig into what does that customer experience look like from start to finish for the 25-year-old, for the 35-year-old, for the 45-year-old, for the 55-year-old?

The other piece that I think relates to servicing the different generations, as well, is that not everybody remembers our Hawaii story. We are the innovator of luxury in the wholesale space. There are other people that have come in and done it; there are people that are trying to break in now. But we were the very first; we know how to do this better than anybody, and I need us to return to that. I need us to tell our origin story again as the innovator of luxury for Hawaii, the innovator in luxury for the Caribbean and Mexico as well as for Europe.

Q: And what does that look like, going back to Classic’s roots and making people who aren’t as familiar with the company’s history more aware?

A: For me, that looks like spending a lot of time with my suppliers, because I rely on my suppliers for that. Ultimately, I deliver a luxury experience when they’re working with my team, but I rely on the suppliers to ultimately deliver the luxury experience to their customer. 

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