Internova CEO plans further brand consolidation

In the six years that J.D. O’Hara has been on Internova Travel Group’s executive leadership team, he has had, quite literally, a simple vision.

“I’m really trying to focus on simplifying the business,” said O’Hara, Internova’s CEO, in an interview last week.

J.D. O’Hara

The simplification of what has historically been a complicated company has been ongoing, but O’Hara said it will result in further consolidation of a handful of its brands on the leisure, direct-to-consumer side of the business down to two or three.

It’s not a journey O’Hara has taken lightly.

“There’s a lot of emotion tied to these brands, and I really view the brand as more of a culture,” he said. “Changing cultures is never easy. We’re doing it very purposely. We’re doing it with lots of input from the people that are affected by it, and taking our time. We’re not in a rush to do any of that.”

O’Hara was involved in the original buyout of Carlson Leisure Group from Carlson Companies in 2008, forming what is today’s Internova (No. 11 on Travel Weekly’s Power List). He was a senior partner at majority shareholder Certares Management before being named the president of Internova (then Travel Leaders Group) in 2018. He ascended to the CEO role in January 2020.

“When I got ahold of this business, I had way too many P&Ls and way too many direct reports,” O’Hara said of the company’s 50 or so brands and the more than 30 people who reported to him. Over the years, he’s whittled that down.

Internova essentially operates three divisions now: one focused on individual advisors, one on agencies and one directly on corporate and leisure travelers.

O’Hara’s current focus is the number of Internova’s direct-to-consumer leisure brands, including CruCon Cruise Outlet, Cruise Specialists, Travel Leaders Vacation Center, Barrhead Travel and Andrew Harper.

Those brands are smaller but “very, very valuable,” he said. “So we’re right in the midst of trying to make sense of that.”

That will likely mean consolidating them to two or three brands, O’Hara said, in a move that will mirror the advisor services division, where Global Travel Collection serves luxury-focused independent contractors and Nexion serves premium-focused ones. The future structure will likely see Andrew Harper focused on the luxury space with another brand focused on the premium space.

“I’ve taken 50-ish brands, trying to make it somewhere around six or eight — that’s sensible,” he said, adding that further brand consolidation could happen in the early part of 2025.

Internova has already successfully merged some brands in its direct-to-consumer corporate business, where the end traveler is the client, and where O’Hara said “we’ve simplified a lot of things.” 

Corporate-focused brands Corporate Travel Services in Mexico and Travel Leaders Corporate were consolidated, and Altour is now the company’s corporate brand, under which also falls the meetings and events company Your Event Solutions.

Elevating travel advisors

Internova bills itself as one of the world’s largest travel services companies; it serves more than 100,000 advisors in more than 6,000 locations. O’Hara does not take that size and scale for granted.

“There’s that whole concept of rising tides lifts all ships,” he said. “And we’re the biggest ship, we’ll get the biggest benefit, but I do have a sense of responsibility toward this industry and travel advisors specifically.”

To that end, the company recently partnered with NBC to produce “1st Look Presents: Extra Mile Club,” a television show featuring two Global Travel Collection advisors planning experiences for reality television personalities.

The show features Internova advisors, O’Hara said, but it was designed to elevate travel advisors as a whole.

A banner year for Internova

Internova’s best year was 2019, when the company reported $7.48 billion in sales; in 2023, that number was down to $5.7 billion. 

But 2024, O’Hara said, will be a “banner year” for Internova, its best on record in terms of revenue and profitability. While the number of transactions are “still slightly compressed,” he said, prices are high, and people are also traveling longer distances and booking longer stays. 

Right now, bookings for next year are stronger than they were at the same time last year, indicating continued growth in the mid to high single digits, O’Hara added.

The positive results come despite the U.S. presidential election.

“In years past, we definitely see a lull leading up to the election,” O’Hara said. “And then the election occurs, and it kind of doesn’t really matter which side wins — people go back to traveling. It’s a strange phenomenon. This year, we’re seeing a lot less of that. There’s less of a lull leading up.”

That trend is “surprising,” he added, as many travel trends have been since the onset of the pandemic. He suspects Covid might have played a role, as consumers now value travel more than ever.

“Quite frankly, I don’t really know why there was a lull prior to previous elections, given the outcome was it went back to travel anyway,” O’Hara said. “So I don’t know which is stranger.”

Correction: Altour is the company’s corporate brand while Global Travel Collection is the company’s entertainment brand; incorrect information appeared in an earlier version of this article.