Amadeus Appoints Leisure Exec CEO
<B>Amadeus Appoints Leisure Exec CEO</B>
Amadeus last week bought leisure agency consortium Vacation.com and appointed its CEO, Tony McKinnon, as president and CEO of Amadeus' North America operations.
McKinnon replaces and now reports to David Jones, who filled the role on an interim basis following the departure a year ago of James Davidson. Davidson now is CEO of the Downers Grove, Ill.-based National Transportation Exchange.
McKinnon this month will move to Miami from Alexandria, Va., to take his new role. Prior to joining Vacation.com, McKinnon served as president of American Hawaii Cruises and the Delta Queen Steamboat Co. Previously, he was president of Wyndham Resort Hotels and held executive posts at American and Delta airlines, as well as Pan Am, US Airways and Certified Vacations.
"More than half of my 20-odd years in the business was about business travel as a senior marketing person with the airlines," McKinnon said. He also gained indirect GDS experience with the airlines. "For example, I negotiated a contract with United, whereby Delta was allowed to sell Apollo installations in the Southeast," he said. "I also was US Airways' Covia rep in the early 1990s, before it became Galileo." Nonetheless, he admitted, "I do have to get up to speed and it's a challenge I'm looking forward to."
McKinnon led Vacation.com after helping start the company more than two years ago with funding from Washington-based Thayer Capital Group, in which former Alamo and American Express executive Roger Ballou and ex-Marriott exec Fred Malek were partners. Thayer also funded Global Vacation Group, based in Washington, D.C., which now is run by Malek after Ballou in September resigned as CEO and chairman of the board.
For Amadeus, Jones will return to his global role, resuming his duties this month as executive vice president in the company's Madrid headquarters.
Amadeus emphasized travel agents' "human touch" in explaining the Vacation.com acquisition, which extends Amadeus' leisure travel strategy for North America in exchange for $57.3 million and assumption of $27.7 million in Vacation.com debt.
"Amadeus is redefining the future of travel distribution and making a significant investment in the future of travel agents," Jones said in a statement. "We don't think human interaction is going away. The merger of Amadeus technology resources with those of Vacation.com will hasten the growth of the new kind of 'e-travel agency,' " he said.