Nico Zenner, who has previously headed Brendan Vacations and Travel Bound, was recently appointed CEO of DH Enterprise, the parent company of Sceptre Tours, Aer Lingus Vacation Store, GreatValueVacations and Global Consolidated Services.

Sceptre Tours is probably most recognizable. It has been around for 33 years and has earned and garnered the respect of travel agents. Sceptre specializes in Ireland, U.K. and also Italy, and next year is adding France, Spain and Portugal to its portfolio of products. The operator will also be doing our own version of a boutique small touring concept.

In addition to Sceptre Tours there is a B-to-C company called Great Value Vacations. And on behalf of Aer Lingus, DH Enterprise operates the Aer Lingus Vacation Store. There is also Global Consolidated Services (GCS), a company that does contracting and reservations on behalf of the other brands.

With your experience and track record, I suspect that DH tapped you in preparation for a big expansion.

That’s what we are hoping for. With all of the brands, there’s a significant amount of upside that we all see and we will be looking forward to, whether it’s with Sceptre, by adding more product and destinations, or with Great Value Vacations, where we do more consumer-oriented activities. Aer Lingus Vacation store obviously has more capacity in the market with their San Francisco flight that’s very successful, and it covers all of Ireland and beyond Ireland. So there is a lot of upside and a lot of potential that DH Enterprise is looking forward to.

Who is the chairman of the company?

Bert Accomando was the CEO before me, and he is now the chairman. So in essence he stepped down as CEO of the company and has become the chairman of the board. There are three sons. Chris is the president of Sceptre and will remain the president of Sceptre. Then there is Mark who is vice president of Sceptre. And then there is Brian, who is in charge of marketing at GCS, which is one of the four brands. It’s not a known entity. It doesn’t sell any travel products. It [does] contracting for Sceptre and GVV and the Aer Lingus Vacation Store and hopefully also for many other travel companies. I would refer to it as providing services to various brands, running the call center, doing contracting, running promotions, that kind of stuff.

So the next things for Sceptre will be adding France, Spain and Portugal, and then a series of new-style small group vacations?

That’s right. Bear in mind, for the Sceptre brand, it’s pretty much all bespoke and FIT business. Escorted tours and guided vacations are not something that Sceptre does. However, with what we call Enchanting Journeys, we will have a concept of boutique touring unlike what is currently offered in the market. It will be a very small number of people to cities that are not necessarily mainstream, with unique itineraries and inclusions. It will be a little bit similar to what I dabbled in before with the Brendan small-group programs.

Yes, that was a great program for Brendan. I was sad to see it go.

Yes, so there are a lot of exciting things happening around here. We’re very much looking forward to expanding in the market, engaging with our travel agency partners, ramping up our sales department, and we have made a lot of improvements in our technology. A lot of investments have been made on the technology side and on the delivery side, so we’ve got excellent documentation that is going out to customers.

You say you now have new destinations in France, Spain and Portugal. So does that mean the bespoke arrangements offered by Sceptre didn’t previously extend into those countries?

Yes. The company carried only three European destinations before, and carried them very well by the way, with a very significant amount of volume. And that was Ireland, all of the U.K., including Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland, and all of Italy, where we have an exclusive arrangement with a destination management company. Those were the main destinations that Sceptre carried and we’re now adding France, Spain and Portugal.

Something Sceptre offers that very few operators offer is golf vacations. There is actually a brochure that deals with golf vacations in just those European countries. That’s truly soup to nuts, including arranging your air travel, [accommodations] in high-end hotel properties and castles, tee times, meals, transportation and fabulous golf courses.

I’m not a golfer myself but, when I look at this brochure and what is included and what can be offered, it’s absolutely magnificent. There are probably two dozen golf courses in Ireland alone that are being offered and an equal amount in Scotland and probably a dozen in Wales and so on. So it’s really quite impressive.