David Hu, the former CEO of Classic Vacations, last month became CEO of Pleasant Holidays following the retirement of Jack Richards. Hu said that while it's too early to divulge specifics, the wholesaler is in a "redefining stage" and will begin to roll out changes this year. Tours editor Brinley Hineman spoke with him about his 2025 strategy and goals.
David Hu
Q: You'd been away from the industry for a few years. What drew you back?
A: I've been on a golf course for the last three years, and what really lured me back was when I started having a conversation with Pleasant and I was like, "Wow, the support [I would be getting] from my parent company [AAA Auto Club of Southern California] is rather impressive." That enables me as an operator to go act as quickly as possible and be able to make an impact, which as a leader, that's what you crave.
Q: Pleasant has expanded significantly since initially being almost entirely focused on Hawaii. Do you anticipate further expansion into new markets?
A: I think -- and part of my own personal feelings are -- we probably expanded a little bit too quickly. We want to make sure part of the exercise is saying, "Hey, who is our audience, what destinations are we going to and are we servicing that correctly?" And if we don't have enough product in certain destinations, are we truly relevant for that segment, that audience? Right now, we're in 83 countries. I think there was a logic behind it that made sense at that point in time. As we go through this whole redefinition of who our audience is and who the segments are, the answers may come out a little bit differently.
Q: What are some challenges and opportunities you have identified at Pleasant?
A: Many of the challenges that this company faces now are challenges that we dealt with at Classic. It's very clear there needs to be a lot more investment into the company, whether it be technology, investing in our people, investing in just flat-out resourcing, be it more software, different software programs, different efficiency tools. There are many things that we could definitely invest in.
Q: How do you plan to set Pleasant apart from competitors?
A: What we're going to do is take the good things about Pleasant and why it succeeded for the 50-plus years it's been around and look at how we could expand on it and redefine ourselves. So at the core of who we are, we're not going to change. Where I want to take this company is to figure out how to bring where it is now into a much more modern company, much more focused in terms of what we're doing, and having a true vision about where we want to go and being relevant three to five to 10 years from now.
Right now, I think we're a little bit of everything to everybody. If we have a specific audience, a certain subset of our clientele wants certain things, we want to make sure that audience gets what they want. There's a clear need to define those segments and then clearly articulate what our kind of brand promise levels are and what our service levels are and what is our differentiator with each one of those audiences.
Q: What changes do you expect to implement?
A: What I'm looking at for 2025 is a redefinition, a reset of who we are, who our audience is. There are a lot of things in this company that need to be addressed, or just getting foundational things in place for the things that we want to do. So, really, the first three to six months is getting all the foundational pieces in place. The back half of this year, definitely middle of this year, we'll probably start making some announcements. The back half of this year, we'll probably have some more concrete things that people will start seeing.