Travel Leaders Leisure Group has appointed Kevin Weisner to serve as the new Vice President of CruiseDeals.com effective December 7. Weisner will be responsible for leading the North Carolina company’s operations, development and growth while reporting directly to Tom Baumann, President of the Travel Leaders Leisure Group division of Minneapolis-based Travel Leaders Group (formerly Carlson Leisure Group).
Weisner will replace Jared Smith, who recently held the general manager position of the large internet cruise retailer. “After leading CruiseDeals.com through several successful initiatives, Jared accepted a wonderful career opportunity in his hometown of New York,” explained Tom Baumann. “We’re sad to lose him, but his leadership will benefit CruiseDeals.com for a long time.”
The majority of Weisner’s twenty four year career has been spent in the leisure travel industry, working for a variety of large leisure travel companies, franchisors, cruise lines, and technology providers. Most recently, Weisner served as a Partner and General Manager of Primero Systems, where he led sales, marketing, and new product development of the company’s webtreepro platform, as well as provided account management to the Travel Leaders Leisure Group. Weisner’s background also includes working for Carlson Leisure Group from 2001 to 2005 in the Travel Franchise division serving as Senior Director of Internal Services, Vice President of Marketing for Carlson Wagonlit Travel, and Vice President/General Manager for Cruise Holidays.
“Having known Kevin for nearly ten years from our days working together at Carlson, I have always admired his abilities in not only his work ethic, but his way of caring for people,” noted Tom Baumann. “Kevin is a very talented individual who will be a tremendous asset to CruiseDeals.com. He will continue driving our team’s passion for providing caring service and the best vacation values to our clients forward.”
“I consider it an honor to lead CruiseDeals.com and am genuinely excited about the momentum and future of the brand,” said CruiseDeals.com Vice President Kevin Weisner. “The team there has done a terrific job building a reputation for first-in-class customer service and the business is now poised to deliver that benefit to serve more and more customers.”
Weisner added, “Consumers now expect more from the Internet than just transactions—they also expect good service and peace of mind that there are people who are genuinely interested in their satisfaction. At CruiseDeals.com, we plan to increase the ways in which we’re differentiated from transaction-focused online retailers.”
