The U.S. Needs Its 'Czar Of Tourism'

10.10.2023 - 16:31 / skift.com / Greg Ohara / Brian Beall / Josh Corder

The U.S. is still waiting to fill its newly-created position of assistant secretary of travel and tourism – dubbed the country’s future ‘Czar of Tourism‘. For now, Brian Beall is acting deputy assistant secretary for travel and tourism and director of the National Travel and Tourism Office, but according to investor Greg O’Hara, the role must be filled if the country wants to roll out a more inviting tourism sector.

O’Hara is the founder and senior managing director of Certares, the private equity firm that owns Internova Travel Group. He spoke at the Skift Global Forum 2023, touching on the various wins and losses across tourism right now: From a travel boom in the Middle East, a foreboding period of overtourism in Europe; and America’s state of regulatory limbo without a dedicated official.

(See the video and transcript below)

Rafat Ali: So welcome back, everyone. Come on please. Fast, to the room. People, settle down. Let’s do this.

Greg O’Hara: I’m not that interesting. Take your time.

Ali: Let the audience decide by the end of this.

O’Hara: Fair, fair, fair.

Ali: Let the audience decide by the end of this. So this is the first time ever Greg is speaking at the Skift Global Forum on stage. During COVID, he’s done a few times by video. For those of you who don’t know Greg O’Hara after this session, there’s never not a time you’re not going to know him. And so, he’s the largest private investor in the world today in travel industry. You manage how many billions today?

O’Hara: Just shy of 11.

Ali: Just shy of $11 billion. Purely focused on travel writ large. The reason he and I chat quite often is because the way we look at the world of travel, which is an expansive definition of travel, is exactly how the company that he founded and runs Certares does it. The first deal that I think many of you may remember Certares from is when he spun out Amex GBT out of Amex.

O’Hara: Yep.

I’m still the chairman of that company. We still have material investment in that company. We’ve done a lot of acquisitions. You saw me the other night thank Arion for selling me Egencia.

Ali: Egencia is now part of Amex GBT.

O’Hara: And that’s an important strategic fit for American Express as it serves small and medium-sized enterprises all over the world but I’m still the chairman of that company.

Ali: You’re still the chairman of the company. You also bought Hertz last year.

O’Hara: Yeah. I was the chairman of that company for a little while and then I felt really odd about being the chairman of a company that Steve managed. Because we did something unusual and that’s we hired the former CFO of Goldman Sachs to be the CEO of Hertz. So I turned the chairmanship over to him so he’s now the chairman of that company.

Ali: So