Paul O'Meara Email & Phone Number

Greater Boston Area

Greater Boston Area

Greater Boston Area

With over $100M in US and International sales revenue, CIE Tours is the largest tour operator focused on selling Ireland & Britain, and is a division of CIE, the national authority for public transport in Ireland. With sales falling to less than $4M in New England during CY2012, I was recruited to kick start growth. In less than 18 months, and in part due to my leveraging of exisiting partnerships with AAA Travel, Virtuoso, American Express, Vacation.com, TravelLeaders, TravelSavers, Liberty Travel and independent agencies, group leaders, tour operators and consumers around New England, I was able to increase sales revenue by 57% to nearly $7M in CY2014. This record growth in New England helped CIE Tours achieve its highest revenue year in its 83 year history.

Greater Boston Area

Pullman Rail Journeys, part of the Iowa Pacific Holdings collection of rail entities, was developed and soft-launched in the US market in 2012. With an eye towards meticulous restoration of historic Pullman rail cars of the 1920's-1950's, the ultimate goal was to charter these restored cars to specialty groups, as well as build a brand from scratch to market to tour operators and travel agents, both domestic and international. I was recruited to PRJ by the VP of Sales and Director of Sales, with whom I had a long-standing relationship as part of my tenure at Yankee Leisure Group. During my tenure, I was responsible for not only helping to develop a retail travel agency and tour operator presence in the eastern United States, but also for development and implementation of a call center, reservations system and dynamic packaging solution as part of a team of three. In less than 12 months, PRJ was was being featured in several large tour operator brochures in the US, Europe and Australia, was being invited to attend US and international trade events, the call center was fully staffed and operational, a Social Media plan was developed and implemented, and a long-term solution for dynamic packaging and operations had been developed. Today, PRJ is the largest private rail excursion operator in the US, with seven distinct rail brands, and is an active member of ASTA, USTA, and USTOA.

Greater Boston Area

Eversave was, at the time of my employment, the third-largest Daily Deal website in the U.S., and a division of the Affinion Group - the global leader in customer engagement with over 7,000 employees worldwide. I was recruited by the President and VP/Sales to help develop and steer Eversave's brand-new Travel Division.In addition to marketing Eversave at local/national/international travel industry events as a viable Daily Deal travel option for independent hotels and resorts worldwide, I also was able to develop profitable partnerships with such worldwide travel brands as Wyndham, Interval International, Fairmont, and Diamond Resorts, and increase travel division revenue by over 200% in my first 9 months.

Greater Boston Area

Yankee Leisure Group, Inc. is a private label tour operator, based in the Boston area, to which I was recruited in early 2006. Since it's founding in 1972, YLG has created and sold many brands - during my tenure we operated four brands: Yankee Holidays, Amtrak Vacations, MTL Vacations and Saga Cruise & Tour Reservations. Total sales topped $15M during my time as VP, Sales & Marketing at YLG.I was recruited to YLG by the President and VP/Product to help steer travel industry partnerships, based on my success at both MCV and TNT Vacations. My four main responsibilities included building and maintaining travel agency partnerships, training and overseeing our group sales team, developing and maintaining a complete social media presence for YLG brands, and helping to steer the overall direction of YLG, along with the other members of the YLG Executive team. In a down market (2007 - 2010) and through strategic partnerships with such agency groups as Vacation.com, Virtuoso, American Express and several large international tour operators, YLG was able to increase sales by almost 100% to over $15M.

Greater Boston Area

TNT Vacations was once the premier Caribbean Travel Wholesaler based in New England. With sales topping the $60M level during my time with TNT, we were the "go-to" first call for many of the northeast's top leisure travel agencies for their Caribbean, Mexico and Group Travel needs.I was retained after TNT Vacations bought MCV - in a clear strategy move to retain my top MCV accounts. In my first 17 months at TNT, my accounts stayed loyal to me and my methods of helping them increase their profit levels - and helped increase revenue from my accounts to nearly $15M - a 75% increase. With the January 2006 departure of the VP, Sales, I was promoted to the position of Director of Sales. In this position, I helped guide a team of 10 group, inside and outside sales managers - and oversaw an increase in revenue from my team from $55M to $62M in just 12 months. I also maintained a close relationship to our top partners - making personal sales visits on a monthly basis to gain insight on their needs - and how TNT Vacations may be able to better partner with them.

Greater Boston Area

Magic Carpet Vacations was the wholesale leisure travel division of Garber Travel. I was recruited by the management team to become the first full-time Sales Manager of MCV, after my success in selling their product line during my time as a Leisure Travel Consultant.Until the time of my hiring, MCV was an internal leisure wholesaler, accepting reservations from Garber Travel offices only. My main objective was to increase presence, sales and profit from those travel agencies outside of the Garber brand - essentially building the MCV brand from scratch to New England's top leisure travel agencies. In less than 18 months, I was able to orchestrate an increase in revenue from $4M to over $8M, while keeping costs flat, through the tactical use of local/regional/national tradeshows, strategic sales consulting and visits, speaking engagements, and industry networking. MCV was sold to TNT vacations in 2003 - and I was retained as a Strategic Accounts Manager for TNT Vacations.

Greater Boston Area

As a top 20 U.S. Travel Agency, Garber Travel (now Travel Associates, a division of Flight Centre Limited) was at the top of its game in the mid-1990's, with over $500M in leisure and corporate travel sales. I was fully trained and became an expert on Sabre air, hotel, and car reservations, as well as a Caribbean and European Destination Specialist. I started my travel career in the Boston University office of Garber Travel, handling mostly student and professor travel. I also worked with the Boston Red Sox front office on their last minute travel needs. From there, I accepted a promotion to the Newbury Street and then the Harvard Square offices, handling the travel planning for high net worth individuals in Boston's trendy Back Bay and Harvard Square neighborhoods - as well as corporate travel needs for numerous startups in and around the Harvard University area.

Education record

Attended Social Media boot camp - #smwknd - which was created and taught by Columbia University Professors and dozens of Social Media.

Education record

Boston Latin Academy (BLA) was originally established in 1878 as Girls’ Latin School (GLS), the very first college preparatory high school.