luxury-travel
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Uniworld Boutique River Cruises
Fifty years ago a former airline executive tried to sell Americans on a European habit: floating slowly down a river. The bet became a fleet of design-forward ships where the price on the brochure is very close to the price you actually pay.
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd.
Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings sells the same scarce commodity three ways: a week away. Its three-brand portfolio, growing fleet and private destinations reveal how a cruise company turns beds at sea into a $9.8 billion vacation business.
Marriott Vacations Worldwide
Marriott Vacations Worldwide does not run Marriott's hotels. It runs something more intricate: a vacation-ownership machine where branded villas, consumer finance, resort management and a 3,200-resort exchange network turn one holiday into several lines of business.
The Luxe Nomad
The Luxe Nomad is a Singapore-based luxury vacation rental company and villa management business, positioned as Asia-Pacific's largest of its kind. Founded in 2012 by Stephanie Chai, it began as a booking portal for hand-picked luxury villas and has grown into a full-service operator that both markets and manages more than 1,400 rooms across destinations including Bali, Koh Samui, Phuket and Japan's Hokkaido (Niseko, Rusutsu, Furano). It pairs an e-commerce booking platform with on-the-ground property management and concierge services for high-end travellers and villa owners.
Skylark
Skylark is a New York-based luxury travel company that fuses a slick online booking platform with a bench of human travel advisors. Clients search five-star hotels and privately negotiated airfare online, then hand the messy parts - upgrades, transfers, spa bookings, itinerary changes - to a real person over phone, text, email or chat. Positioned as the only true hybrid online-offline agency, Skylark packages VIP hotel perks (room upgrades, complimentary breakfast, resort credits) through its Virtuoso membership and industry partnerships.
Ben Klein
Ben Klein is the CEO of Aero, the by-the-seat semi-private jet airline founded by Uber co-founder Garrett Camp and based at Van Nuys Airport in Los Angeles. A licensed pilot since high school and a former aviation litigator, Klein is unusual among airline chief executives: he not only runs the company but also flies its Embraer 135s and Legacy 600s as a certified first officer. He joined Aero as General Counsel in 2021, became President, and stepped up to CEO in September 2023, steering the carrier's consolidation around Los Angeles and its position in the gap between commercial first class and full private charter. He also teaches aviation law as an adjunct professor at San Jose State University.
Michael Greene
Michael Greene is the CEO and President of Skylark, a New York based luxury travel agency that blends human travel advisors with high-tech booking tools. A Cornell Hotel School graduate, he spent a decade building hospitality marketplaces - leading the Amex Global Dining Network and global growth at Resy, co-founding the members-only restaurant platform Dorsia, and serving as Chief of Staff at Avero. He now leads Skylark and its members-only last-minute luxury hotel platform, Wanderluxe.
Aero
Aero is a Los Angeles-based semi-private airline that sells individual seats on custom-configured business jets, slotting itself between full private charter and commercial first class. Founded in 2019 out of Garrett Camp's Expa studio, it flies all-black Embraer ERJ-135 jets reconfigured to 16 leather seats from private terminals on routes like Los Angeles to Aspen, Los Cabos, Napa and Maui, letting guests arrive about 20 minutes before departure for fares roughly comparable to premium commercial cabins.
Remote Lands, Inc.
Remote Lands is a New York-based ultra-luxury travel company focused exclusively on Asia. Founded in 2006 by Catherine Heald and Jay Tindall, it designs bespoke, privately guided journeys across more than two dozen Asian countries for celebrities, Fortune 500 executives and other ultra-high-net-worth travelers - coining the term 'travel designer' and running the celebrated Aman Jet Expeditions on a custom 19-seat Airbus.
Catherine Heald
Catherine Heald is the co-founder and CEO of Remote Lands, the New York and Bangkok based ultra-luxe tour operator that designs bespoke private journeys across Asia for celebrities, Fortune 500 chiefs and the ultra wealthy. Before luxury travel she was a software pioneer: a Barnard computer science graduate who wrote code on Wall Street, moved to Hong Kong, founded one of the world's first e-book publishers, licensed the Pink Panther to teach kids geography, and in 1996 became one of the youngest female CEOs of a publicly traded company when she took Wanderlust Interactive public in Silicon Alley's first IPO. Today she runs the exclusive operator of Aman Jet Expeditions and has been named a Conde Nast Top Travel Specialist for years running.