About Us
Luxury Travel’s #1 ROI Generator
The World’s Greatest Vacations is luxury travel’s most targeted and largest omni-channel marketing platform. Every week, we connect 1,094,000 actively booking, high-net-worth households with luxury travel’s most iconic brands through 1,000,000+ synchronized digital impressions and premium direct mail.
Our Mission
For over three decades, we’ve had one singular focus: helping luxury travel brands acquire new, high-value customers.
Why We’re Different
- Proven Performance: Founded in 1993 by Madison Avenue executives, our platform has grown from 100,000 to 1.1M households purely through consumer response.
- Smart Targeting: Our database is refreshed annually to eliminate waste and focus only on the most engaged travelers.
- Omni-Channel Precision: We synchronize direct mail, digital retargeting, and dedicated campaigns to maximize response.
- Guaranteed ROI: As a privately owned company, accountability is our hallmark — we guarantee to surpass your direct mail, digital, and traditional media ROI/KPIs.
- Turnkey & Efficient: All you provide is the creative; we handle the rest at just $0.10 per household.
Built on Relationships
Many of our former partners now serve on our Advisory Board — a testament to the long-term relationships and trust we’ve built over the years.
Three decades of data refinement + direct mail’s proven superiority + synchronized digital retargeting + a guaranteed performance model = Luxury Travel’s Definitive
Luxury Travel’s Most Powerful Marketing Platform
The World’s Greatest Vacations reaches 1.1M actively booking, high-net-worth households every week, combining premium direct mail and 1M+ synchronized digital impressions for unmatched performance.
For over 30 years, we’ve helped luxury travel’s most iconic brands achieve their #1 ROI — guaranteed.
Exclusively for leading luxury travel brands,
our passion is ready to be put to great use
Richard Shane
Founder
Meet Richard Shane, Founder & CEO
Richard Shane is the heart behind The World’s Greatest Vacations. What began over 30 years ago as Treasure Chest grew out of Richard’s Madison Avenue experience and strategic planning for American Express Travel, Trans World Airlines, and other leading brands. Today, WGV is one of the most trusted ways to discover luxury vacations — created to help travelers like you find your next unforgettable journey.
Richard’s personal story has inspired everything about the company. For two decades, while growing Treasure Chest, he lived with 20 seizures a month — more than 3,000 in total — until brain surgery made him one of the rare few cured of epilepsy. That life-changing experience fuels his mission to give back. Through FACES (Finding A Cure for Epilepsy and Seizures), Richard has completed eleven marathons in New York City, raising funds and awareness to help others find freedom and hope.
A recent follow up about Shane’s medical miracle and how it has impacted The World’s Greatest Vacations.
Featured on ABC Eyewitness News
Captain Peter Philpott
Chief Information Officer
Captain Peter Philpott’s nautical career had humble beginnings as a Navigating Cadet on cargo ships at 17 years old. Realizing the sea was his calling, his hard work and passion saw him rise up to Officer Ranking by the time he was only 27. He then took the helm in the ocean cruising industry, commanding numerous impressive vessels throughout his career including his current post as Captain of the Queen Mary 2, the most famous passenger liner in the world today. Recently retired, Captain Philpott frequently writes for The World’s Greatest Vacations and has sailed aboard our partners’ vessels, writing, video blogging and consulting on their behalf.
Michal Makaruk
Chief Digital Officer
A 20-year internet marketing veteran, Michal’s expertise is in email and social media marketing for luxury products and services. For the last 10 years, he has focused on digital marketing for luxury travel and retail specifically in both the United States and Europe.
Jens-Uwe Weidner
Vice President, International Markets
Jens’ two decades of travel experience has created a deep understanding of the opportunities, challenges and nuances of the industry, a knowledge base that is invaluable to his role in overseeing international growth for The World’s Greatest Vacations. An avid traveler himself, Jens is also a talented photographer and videographer and has helped create powerful content for many of our clients.
Strategic Advisors
The company you keep. The World’s Greatest Vacations’ strategic advisors are an all-star team of industry veterans available to provide valuable expertise, insights, and direction. In addition to seeing the successful WGV platform work firsthand, and their bountiful knowledge is priceless. Consultation with one or more is available to our partners.
Joni Rein
Joni Rein, President of Rein Global Consulting, heads a talented team that works with leaders to optimize their national and international resources and portfolios, principally in the areas of margin improvement and expansion & diversification. She previously served as vice president of worldwide sales for Carnival Cruise Line, where she launched Carnival’s first concentrated push for international expansion. As Carnival’s VP of U.S. field sales, Joni headed implementation of CRM systems that delivered large-scale sales and profit improvements. Her prior experience includes both executive and management roles in sales, marketing, and business development with The Scenic Group, Costa Cruises, Online Vacation Center and Renaissance Cruises.
Ken Jones
As former CMO of Carnival Corp, Ken led all cross-brand activation and marketing efforts across portfolio of nine World’s Leading Cruise Line brands including Carnival Cruise Line, Princess Cruises, Holland America Line, Seabourn, Cunard, P&O UK, P&O Australia, AIDA and Costa brands. He is well versed in financial metrics, team building, talent evaluation, on-boarding, the development and the execution of strategic plans to grow business, revenue, resources and sales. With a keen understanding of how to evaluate and grow an existing business, department or enterprise, his specialties include: brand building, individual commitment, internal communications, social media and performance metrics, marketing and strategic development.
Hugh Riley
The former Secretary General of the Caribbean Tourism Organization, Hugh Riley is a Partner of The Portfolio Marketing Group. With over thirty years of tourism and marketing communications experience, he is an ardent supporter of environmentally responsible tourism and an advocate for visitor satisfaction. He developed major tourism industry initiatives for his native country Barbados and for the wider Caribbean, identifying key market segments by niche, geography, and productivity and representing clients’ interests at the highest levels. Meeting the tourism development objectives, significant elements of that overall responsibility were international marketing and global advocacy, promoting the assets, and protecting the rights of communities and destinations of all sizes whose primary source of revenue is tourism.
Gordon Ho
As former CMO and sales head at Princess Cruises and EVP of Marketing & Technology at Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, Gordon is a leader in digital transformation, experience design, direct-to-consumer models, social media and global marketing strategies. Gordon launched Discovery at Sea, bringing Discovery Channel and Animal Planet experiences to Princess, new culinary experiences and an expanded Princess Influencer and social media program driving #1 industry earned media coverage. Spearheading Princess’s “personalization at scale” initiative and new marketing technology solutions drove double-digit ROI improvements in advertising and e-commerce conversions. Gordon led Disney’s digital marketing and content strategies, the industry’s #1 CRM loyalty program, Disney Movie Rewards, and #1 subscription program, Disney Movie Club.
Brian Patrick Powell
A breadth of roles and experience make Brian one of the more rounded and passionate travel industry professionals. With a 30+ year career with a major airline, and large and boutique cruiselines, his executive knowledge and experience in Reservations, Sales, Customer Journey/Loyalty, Product Development, Marketing, Revenue Management and vendor relations allows him to successfully piece clients’ big picture together. Always an engaging presenter and listener, his love for travel is always present. Starting his career in sales management with American Airlines, Brian took his talents to RCCL for over 20 years leading several teams at the executive level, and then most recently served as CMO of AQSC.
Gil Antolin
President and Founder of Luxury World Traveler has visited 71 countries, 250+ luxury resorts and has 10 years experience in social media marketing for travel brands and tourism boards. More than 1,000 successful collaborations with luxury hospitality companies world wide. Featured in TedX, Forbes, Huff Post, Entrepreneur Magazine, Maxim, Buzz Feed and Wealth TV. This expertise is the perfect strategic partner for WGV and available to assist in our partners’ social media and production, needs.
Jon Bond
Recognized as one of marketing’s top thought leaders, Jon’s impressive 35-year career includes co-founder of several successful agencies, a published author and an expert industry speaker. Co-Founder and CEO of award-winning Kirshenbaum Bond and Partners (KBP); former CEO of Big Fuel, one of the world’s largest social media agencies; and more. His leadership included clients including BMW, Citi, Victoria’s Secret, Target, Wendy’s, Coca Cola Company, General Motors, Gatorade, Chase, and T-Mobile. Jon is also a key-note speaker, lecturing at Harvard Business School, Columbia, NYU and more.
Lauren Smith
Lauren is Founder of ecommerce shop, SustainableTravelAndLiving.com, and principal of Lamplight Strategies, a consultancy group offering senior-level sales, marketing and sustainability services. She has spent the last decade in the travel industry, starting with tenure as VP of Marketing and Interim Global CMO for Trafalgar, Costsaver and Brendan Vacations, then leading key projects for other international travel brands as a consultant. Backed by career experience across start-up and Fortune 500 companies alike, and passion for “the intersection of creativity and analytics” she offers clients support with strategic planning, research and data analysis, brand management, UX/UI and customer journey design, CSR/sustainability program design and more.
