PHOTO: Boats in El Yunque, Cuba

Richard Krieger was appointed president of Isramworld last year by the company’s founder, chairman and CEO, Ady Gelber. Krieger has been in the travel industry for more than 20 years, much of it on the retail travel side, where he first got to know Gelber. During his tutelage in the business, he worked closely with Gelber, becoming the founder’s closest confidant and right-hand man. Since Krieger was already at the center of all business activities of the company, taking the new role as president only required a relatively slight shift from his previous role. Vacation Agent interviewed Krieger in early July as the company completed its relocation to a new office.

What are your goals as you take on the role of president of Isramworld?

One of the goals of my presidency, and I think one of the reasons Ady [Gelber] and I work well together is that I really want to strengthen and reinforce the “world” part of Isramworld. Many people know us from Israel, which is the foundation of our company. It will always be our heart and soul and that goes without saying. But I really want people to understand that Isramworld is an international tour operator.

As an international tour operator, where are you seeing growth?

We see expansions and growth in a number of areas. First we are seeing, and many of our colleagues are also seeing, that private-car custom FITs special requests are without question the largest-growing segment of our business. Whether it’s Israel or South or Central America, it’s really the core for us. It’s the number-one demographic for growth.

From a destination perspective it is Cuba. We were very modest and conservative in our expectations for Cuba when we got our license last year, and we exceeded those expectations tremendously. We’ve just received our renewal, and we’re licensed to participate in the people-to-people programs for the next two years, so that for us is a major coup. Agents have responded with overwhelming support. Every departure was sold out.

With your license is there a limit on capacity?

No, there is no limit on capacity. We’re trying to keep to small luxury groups, about 24 passengers per departure. A departure could in theory have two buses or three buses, but that’s not really who we are. We’re focusing on that person-to-person experience. And I feel personally, especially with a destination like Cuba, when you’re getting into multiple buses, with a lot of people, you sort of lose the sense of a unique experience. So we’re really adhering to what our agents have asked of us, which is really to focus on small luxury groups instead of the bigger bus tours that we have in Israel, which are really forever popular. They are huge for us.

Besides Cuba we decided this year to expand our Europe business. We came out with a program to Iceland. We have a World War II program to Poland. We have a London and Downton Abbey. They were also wildly successful. We were hoping that agents and the travel community would embrace them. They embraced them and more.

So we’re going to be adding more specialty tours in 2014, 2015 and 2016. We’re expanding in the U.K., working on some exciting combinations to give options for London, Scotland and Ireland separately or all together. We’re also expanding in Portugal, offering some culinary and cultural experiences. And our commitment to Greece has taken off. We launched a stand-alone Greece brochure. The travel agents and traveling community has taken it up and embraced it. Isram always had Greece as an offering and, many years ago, we had a brochure. Now, we are reintroducing it with one brochure all for Greece.

What are your plans for Egypt?

Egypt has always been important to us. From a business perspective it is an important destination. From an emotional perspective, Ady always instilled the importance of promoting and supporting Egypt. We’re now getting ready to begin the reintroduction of our Egypt programs. We were one of the biggest, and many travel agents are looking to us knowing that, if Isram is coming back, it is safe to sell. We will monitor it as it comes along.

Are you expanding your operations elsewhere in Latin America?

Besides Cuba, we offer Costa Rica, Belize and Panama now and we are analyzing the introduction of Mexico for the luxury market. We are also analyzing Switzerland. One of our central mandates and focuses is to build on the demand. We offer high-quality motorcoach tours and creative FITs and groups, and when we go to the destinations, such as Cuba, Greece and other destinations, we are not looking to go into head-to-head competition with other companies. We’re not going to be offering 12 countries in two weeks, that’s not who we are. The good thing about being the largest tour operator in Israel is that we are there on the ground in the forefront of everything new that is happening there. We’re there, our Isram sister office is there. We are using the same methodology in South America. We have the right team and we have the right product line.