leisure
(5)
Herschend Family Entertainment
The company behind Dollywood and Silver Dollar City turned a single Missouri cave into North America's largest family-owned attractions empire - and it runs the whole thing on a management theory most boardrooms would never say out loud: love.
Hilton Grand Vacations
Hilton Grand Vacations sells something more complicated than a hotel room: a repeatable claim on future holidays. Its real product is the machinery that turns deeds, points, loans and resort operations into a travel habit for more than 720,000 members.
JAZ Hotel Group
JAZ Hotel Group is the hospitality arm of Travco Group International, Egypt's largest travel conglomerate. Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Sheikh Zayed City, Giza, JAZ owns and manages a portfolio of 70-plus beach resorts and hotels concentrated on Egypt's Red Sea and Mediterranean coasts, with newer properties in Zanzibar and the UAE. Its brands - JAZ, JAZ Elite, JAZ Neo, Iberotel, Solymar and others - focus largely on all-inclusive leisure travel for European and regional holidaymakers.
Pierre-Olivier Lepage
Pierre-Olivier Lepage is the CEO and co-founder of Cruisebound, a New York-based digital-first cruise booking platform he launched in 2022 after struggling to book his own first cruise online. A Polytechnique Montréal engineering graduate who earned dual MIT master's degrees in Transportation and Operations Research, Lepage previously built operations at Rocket Travel (a Booking Holdings company) and consulted at McKinsey before betting that the $66B cruise industry — where 80% of bookings still flow through travel agents — was ripe for a tech-native overhaul. Cruisebound has since raised $37.8M in total funding, serves customers averaging nine years younger than typical cruisers, and routes 42% of support queries through AI, positioning itself as the fastest-growing national online cruise agency.
Xola
Xola is a San Francisco-based SaaS platform that provides enterprise-grade booking, marketing, and operations software for tour operators and activity providers. Founded in 2011, Xola helps over 1,200 businesses in the tours and activities industry manage reservations, process payments, automate marketing, and grow their operations — all from a single cloud-based platform. With integrations across Google, Groupon, Expedia, TripAdvisor, and 75+ other apps, Xola brings enterprise-caliber tools to an industry that has historically been underserved by technology.