Classic Vacations is taking its time replacing Melissa Krueger — and using the pause to chase a list of firsts, including international points of sale, a new advisor-facing booking platform, and a high-end integrated itinerary product spanning private yachts and villas.
Interim CEO Sharon Conway and Gaurav Bhatnagar, co-founder and joint managing director of parent company TBO, laid out the roadmap in an interview with Luxury Travel Advisor days after the company announced Krueger’s departure following 13 years (the last five as CEO) with the luxury wholesaler.
“We are not in a tearing hurry,” Bhatnagar said of the search for a permanent leader.
Instead, the company is embarking on what he called a “big listening tour” with employees, travel advisors, agencies, and hotel partners before deciding what the role should even look like.
“We want to take a more measured view of what the eventual leader should look like, and that could very well be Sharon, but it could also be somebody else," he added.
Bhatnagar characterized Krueger’s exit as the product of “a mutual conversation” at a natural inflection point, roughly a year after TBO closed its $125 million acquisition of Classic. The two go back further than the deal itself — Bhatnagar said the sides were “conversing on this transaction for nearly three years,” with the deal closing on the third attempt.
“It just feels like a logical point for everyone at this point in time,” he said.
Conway, a 20-year Classic veteran who retains her CFO duties, said her mandate for the next 12 weeks is stabilizing the core business while listening to advisors and employees. Her finance background is an accelerant rather than a cost-cutting signal, allowing her to “analyze opportunities a little faster” given her fluency across the business, she argued. The timing dovetails with TBO’s budget cycle: the company’s fiscal year begins April 1, and planning kicks off in the coming weeks with Conway making capital allocation calls while wearing both hats.
The most concrete news may be geographic. Classic — which has sold exclusively into the U.S. market for nearly 50 years — is preparing its first international points of sale.
“This is something Classic has always wanted to do: go global, and we’ve never been able to do that, and so we’re currently looking at expanding into Australia and New Zealand as a point of sale, as well as Canada,” Conway said.
Bhatnagar said the data drove those picks: Canada, Australia, the U.K., and Ireland lead the world in per capita luxury travel spend, punching above their weight despite small populations. Longer term, he pointed to India, the Middle East, and parts of Latin America as emerging luxury source markets, though he cautioned that build-out could take years.
On the technology front, Bhatnagar said TBO’s first move was deploying its supply tech into Classic’s largely manual hotel onboarding process, compressing the timeline from advisor demand signal to bookable property “in a matter of days.” A new advisor-facing platform rolls out in the next few months — but he was emphatic it is not designed as a self-service tool first. For $20,000 to $50,000 bookings, he said, “the first port of call always is our reservations team,” with the platform serving smaller bookings and post-booking modifications.
The product pipeline is tilting experiential. Conway pointed to deeper inventory in existing destinations, particularly Europe, and “a very big push” on integrated itineraries built around villas and private yachts, with an announcement “coming out very soon.” Bhatnagar added an enhanced safari product in Africa and a forthcoming catalog organized around complete, customizable itineraries featuring experiences “that are hard to find and book online.”
Both executives pushed back on the notion that a third ownership era — after Expedia Group and the Najafi Companies — dilutes Classic’s identity.
“This is the first time that I’ve seen where we have an owner that values the same things that we do," Conway said.
As for the luxury market itself, Bhatnagar said travel spend growth is concentrated “right at the top of the pyramid,” mirroring where hotel brands are pouring development dollars. And in an AI-first era, he sees the complex luxury trip as the advisor’s moat.
“A travel advisor will outbeat a ChatGPT or a Claude, not just on their advice or the recommendations, but managing my trip for me, being my concierge, making sure that everything goes fine," he said.
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