World Travel Holdings celebrates 20 years

WAKJEFIELD, MASS. – World Travel Holdings is celebrating 20 remarkable years as a powerhouse in the leisure travel and franchise industries. Founded on January 1, 2005, by brothers Brad and Jeff Tolkin, World Travel Holdings has grown into the nation’s largest cruise agency, which also operates a top ranked travel agency franchise as well as cruise brands in the United Kingdom. It also manages cruise sales for many of the largest travel brands in the world and is a leading distributor of high-end villas.

A Series of Acquisitions

Over the last 20 years, World Travel Holdings has grown mostly organically, but also through a variety of successful acquisitions. Some include:

• National Leisure Group which operated brands such as CruisesOnly, Cruises.com, CruiseOne and more. National Leisure Group also partnered with some of the world’s most recognizable brands such as BJ’s Wholesale Club and Priceline.com which are still partners of World Travel Holdings today.
• Cheap Cruises, a value focused brand.
• Villas of Distinction, a leading luxury villa provider established in 1988; Jamaica Villas, the leading villa distributor in Jamaica; and Bravo Holidays, a leading villa distributor in Italy.
• The UK’s fastest growing cruise retail business, Cruise118, and today it fully owns and operates World Travel Holdings UK which also includes Six Star Cruises and RiverVoyages.com cruise brands.
• Cruiseline.com, a community of avid cruisers who provide verified cruise reviews.
• Shipmate Cruise App, the #1 cruise app with more than two million downloads.
• Resort for a Day, which offers resort day passes to cruisers when they are in port.

Making Waves

World Travel Holdings’ executive leadership team has laid the foundation and built a company culture around innovative business practices and an openness to take smart risks which has been a defining factor in the company’s tremendous success. Here is a sampling of some major growth milestones:

• September 2024: Southwest Airlines joins World Travel Holdings as a private-label partner brand.
• March 2024: Dream Vacations/CruiseOne reaches a milestone of 2,000 franchise locations.
• November 2023: Booking.com joins World Travel Holdings as a private-label partner brand.
• October 2019: RCI, the leader in vacation exchange, becomes a private-label partner brand.
• February 2019: The company announces its first-ever partnership with a consortium – Travel Leaders Network.
• April 2016: The company’s B2B division launches a franchise brand that speaks to all types of vacations – Dream Vacations which has been ranked the #1 travel agency franchise in Entrepreneur’s Franchise 500 for four consecutive years.
• May 2012: CruiseOne launches “Operation Vetrepreneur: Become Your Own General” contest. To date, the CruiseOne/Dream Vacations franchise has given away 61 franchises valued at more than $700,000 dollars to military veterans.
• July 2011: Make-A-Wish becomes World Travel Holdings’ signature charity and since that time, the company has raised nearly $2 million dollars to help create life-changing wishes for children with critical illnesses.

A Family-Owned Business

Brothers and Co-Chairmen/Co-CEOs Brad and Jeff Tolkin each have more than 40 years of experience as an operating executive in the travel industry. As a result of their significant contributions to the cruise industry, Brad and Jeff were inducted into the Cruise Lines International Association Hall of Fame in 2014, and in 2021, received Travel Weekly’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Prior to co-founding World Travel Holdings, the Tolkin family owned and operated Travel Impressions, one of the country’s most successful privately held travel wholesalers, and in 1992 they acquired Empress Travel. Travel Impressions and Empress Travel were both sold to American Express in 1998.

“As we reflect on two decades of success at World Travel Holdings, we know that it is our leadership team, our employees and our travel agency franchise owners who are our most valuable assets, and we are deeply grateful for their drive, passion and commitment to World Travel Holdings,” said the Tolkins. “We also want to thank all our travel partners and cruise line suppliers who we have worked beside for so many years and have supported the travel agency community. We look forward to delivering more remarkable experiences and creating more memories in the years to come.”

This month, the company is honoring the values that define its culture – Passion, Pride, Teamwork, and Velocity – with a series of special executive videos and engaging activities for its employees. It’s a time to celebrate not only the company’s incredible growth but also the dedication of its teams and the trust of millions of travelers worldwide.

The article World Travel Holdings celebrates 20 years first appeared in TravelDailyNews International.