| Vacation Express | |
| Type: | Private |
| Industry: | Tour operator |
| Founded: | in Atlanta, Georgia |
| Hq Location City: | Atlanta, Georgia |
| Hq Location Country: | United States |
| Key People: | [1] |
Vacation Express is a tour operator based in Atlanta, Georgia. The company was founded in 1989. Vacation Express was purchased by Sunwing Travel Group in 2011 for an undisclosed sum.[2] The company has sold over two million vacation packages.[3]
Vacation Express was founded in 1989 by Kevin Hernandez, Gantt Cookson and Meg Deeb.[4] The company's initial offering was air/land vacation packages to Jamaica.[5] In 1992, the company began a charter flight from Atlanta to Cancun and eventually became known as a charter operator in the Southeast and Midwest.[2] By 1998, Vacation Express sold packages from nine U.S. cities to Cancun, Cozumel, Aruba and Costa Rica. That year, Vacation Express was purchased for $24 million by the subsidiary of Airtours International Airways, North America Leisure Group.[4] As part of the acquisition the Vacation Express began offering cruises, expanded its services into the Mid-Atlantic region and listed Baltimore as a chartered gateway.[6] After ten years in business, the company had grown to sell travel packages to 100,000 customers annually by 1999.[6] In 2003, Vacation Express was purchased by Flightserv Inc., a travel services division of Capital Group, along with another tour operator for $16.5 million.[7] [8]
In 2011, Sunwing Travel Group purchased Vacation Express for an undisclosed sum.[2] As a result of the sale Sunwing Airlines, a subsidiary of Sunwing Travel Group, sells fares through Vacation Express.[9] [10] The company also sells charters flights through many airlines including Aeroméxico, Interjet, and iAero Airways.[11] [12] [13]