Selling Travel April 2015

CHAPTER ONE INSIDE!

04/2015

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10/29/13 2:18 PM

THE HOW-TO MAGAZINE FOR TRAVEL TRADE PROFESSIONALS

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EDITORIAL

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ARE YOU ON THE LIST?

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YES, NO, MAYBE

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TIME, MONEY, VALUE

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HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH?

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WANT TO SELL MORE HOTELS?

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STAMPS AS A NICHE MARKET

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SERVICE IS A PRODUCT TOO

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THE SHAMWOW TRAVEL SERVICE

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AMERICAN TRAVEL AGENTS – SHOP HERE

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THE TRAVEL AGENCY – A HISTORICAL NOVELLA

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RAMBLING WITH DALTON: CANOEING CANADA’S HAYES RIVER

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THE TRAVEL INSTITUTE

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TRAVEL DÉJÀ VU-ING – Steve Gillick

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DIGITAL PHOTOS ARE NOT FOREVER! – Drew Hendrix

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COMING SOON! SELLLING TRAVEL WITH HUMOUR

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ON THE STORE SHELVES NOW – WOMEN ONLY TRAVEL

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CLASSIFIEDS

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I DO WEDDING PRINT

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READ MORE ME HERE!

The DESIRE to travel starts early and continues throughout one’s life – are you marketing to Generation Z?

Share your money making ideas in SELLING TRAVEL. CONTACT Steve Crowhurst steve@sellingtravel.net 250-738-0064 www.sellingtravel.net Publisher: SMP Training Co. www.sellingtravel.net Contributors Steve Crowhurst

Attention Suppliers: Advertising in SELLING TRAVEL reaches the serious business-minded travel agent. Promote your products and services using Selling Travel’s unique promotional formula – you write the articles on how to sell your own products offering step-by-step selling tips, tools and techniques that you know have worked for your agency accounts. Full page rates range from $300 to $425 based on number of insertions. Remember, if you can’t sell it to them, they can’t sell it for you!

Please note that Selling Travel, owned and published by SMP Training Co, is not connected in any way to Selling Travel magazine published by BMI Publishing Ltd., and based in the UK. The latter publication focuses entirely on destination and travel/tourism product training and is circulated solely to the UK and Ireland travel industries. To benefit from this resource visit www.sellingtravel.co.uk and be sure to subscribe.

SELLING TRAVEL is owned and published

by Steve Crowhurst, SMP Training Co. All Rights Reserved.

Protected by International Copyright Law. SELLING TRAVEL can be shared, forwarded, cut and pasted but not sold, resold or in any way monetized. Using any images or content from SELLING TRAVEL must be sourced as follows: “Copyright SMP Training Co. www.sellingtravel.net” SMP Training Co. 568 Country Club Drive, Qualicum Beach, BC, Canada, V9K-1G1 Note: Steve Crowhurst is not responsible for outcomes based on how you interpret or use the ideas in SELLING TRAVEL. T: 250-738-0064.

SALES & MARKETING TIPS, TOOLS & TECHNIQUES FOR ALL TRAVEL TRADE PROFESSIONALS

The WILL to

Steve Crowhurst, Publisher

The Travel Agency… sample chapter starts in this issue Something new. Something different. In this month’s issue of Selling Travel you’ll find a review chapter from my eBook called… wait for it, The Travel Agency. When I mentioned it on the Selling Travel Facebook page it received over 200 clicks and that was very encouraging.

The Travel Agency tells the story of a family owned agency. Each chapter covers off a decade starting in 1975 and follows a profitable family owned travel agency as it transfers from father to son and then shortly after, the world changes, then changes again and our new owner must start to plan the future of the business amidst good times and bad times. Follow the humourous events as The Travel Agency, despite all the odds, survives through to current times and from there on faces daily challenges as you know them to be. Hope you enjoy the trip down memory lane to present day. I’ll stop here and let you click to the cover page herein and start reading, reminiscing and hopefully making notes. Thanks in advance for your candid comments and please keep in mind that the review chapter has been reduced in content to fit the magazine.

Look for Chapter two covering the 1980s in the May issue. Eventually, all chapters will be released in one eBook and based on the interest received that may be sooner rather than later.

In addition we have articles on YES, NO & MAYBE, to help you sort through all the possible opportunities this month, plus Rambling With Dalton returns as does Steve Gillick with his always entertaining articles and this month he’s writing about Travel Deja Vu. Here’s to your continued success in SELLING TRAVEL. Best regards.

Steve Crowhurst, CTC, CTM Hon. steve@sellingtravel.net www.sellingtravel.net

Click on the store icon to opt-in.

Click the store image to join.

You know it is how it is. This is the travel industry as it has always been. It’s busy, it’s bustling, it’s going places and there’s so much to tell and sell that at times selling travel can become overwhelming. In order to stay on point and generate the sales you need and want it’s always best to analyse what it is you are selling, could be selling and should be selling. Here’s how: First things first and that’s the only way to keep on top of your selling, is to be fully informed about what is making money for the travel agency you are working for. If you are independent then you might want to ask HQ about what your home-based colleagues are selling and profiting from. Once you know what the top three of anything are (tours etc.) then you know what to focus on.

Once you know what you should be selling, then it’s all down to studying the details, the features and benefits, pricing and categories etc. This is no easy task as it means spending time with brochures and looking at the computer screen for a few hours on end.

Unfortunately this time investment is the one thing that separates those who know and those who don’t.

The next thing to do is prioritize your selling, and focus on what you can sell with confidence and this usually results in the places & destinations you have travelled to personally, followed by the suppliers you have also experienced personally.

The next best thing is to attend webinars and local presentations arranged by your preferred suppliers and after that, it’s the knowledge your colleagues and clients can offer you.

The worst case scenario is that you bungle through your selling time, wasting energy and turning a client away from you and your agency. Being well informed is the key to success. Or one of them.

1. What destination is selling NOW? ____________________________________ ____________________________________ 2. Which preferred supplier is being requested NOW? ____________________________________ ____________________________________ 3. What type of vacation is being requested more and more? ____________________________________ ____________________________________ It would also be a good idea to know when HQ is releasing its advertising and the type of promotions planned. Then you can be ready for the phone calls AND also send out your own eBlast to coincide with the product. ď ‘

Ah ha! The Yes, No, Maybe has morphed into something a little more dicey! The truth has come about. What you do each and every day must conform to a roll of this dice. Yes, it is all about Time, Value and Money. So let’s explore how you can make better use of your TIME, so that you deliver the best VALUE to your clients, and that should turn into more MONEY for you.

Bonus!

With all the present day activities that go into selling travel it’s a wonder that there is enough time to do it all. But do it all you must. Time is money as you well know and that means you need to spend it wisely.

One thing to keep in mind and especially if you are new to selling travel. Time is what we call a raw product. Translated into travel selling concepts this means that you only have a certain amount of time in which to sell certain products as they too are influenced by time.

Here’s how it works: a flight from A to B is leaving on Friday at 10am; a tour of Europe is departing London, England on Saturday morning. That’s it. Once that flight has taken

off and that tour coach has left the pick-up point, there is no additional selling time.

Both opportunities have closed.

It’s very important when you plan your plan to factor in the selling time that is available prior to the product you intend to sell.

There is marketing time to factor in, the consumer’s buying and decision making time and then if you are selling groups, there will be the cut-off date imposed by the supplier you are dealing with.

Planning your time on a grid allows you to see how far in advance you should be promoting that flight, that tour, that cruise and that package to wherever.

Based on the amount of time you spend marketing your products and services you should also have a plan that indicates the return on your time investment. There has to be a value assigned to the time.

If you work this pattern in the morning of each day, that leaves you the afternoon to complete more marketing, service clients who have responded to your marketing or just happen to be calling to book a trip.

For you this means jotting down how much you would like to make this year, personally.

When you plot this figure make sure it’s worth your while and so anything under $50,000 in your jeans would essentially mean you are ‘playing’ at being a travel agent. Note to you: this usually comes across to suppliers and senior management that you are basically not in the business to sell.

You’ll have time to arrange their travels, explore new information online, have coffee and read a trade magazine and then be back to your desk cool, calm and collected.

Newcomers would need time to build a book of business and this too is understood. By year two however you too should be focused on generating $50,000 and up for yourself.

The way to generate that figure is to offer the best possible value to your existing and would be clients. As you have already read in this issue of Selling Travel, you should be promoting your customer service as a product. Selling service and servicing the sale is a slogan you can repeat to yourself. It will keep you focused.

Plan your work week into days of action. On Sunday you should complete a quick review of your week ahead. That quick check will allow you to go to work Monday with a clear mind and you’ll be ready for anything that clicks, calls or walks in.

Each day of the ensuing week, send out at least ten prospecting emails and make sure you are compliant with the anti-spam laws of your country, regions, state, province etc.

You’ll want to be sure you have your client’s okay to send them emails and similar.

Each day you’ll want to follow up on previous prospecting activities.

If you work from home, there is no difference in how you should plan your day / week. As every home based travel agent knows there are some things that can interfere with your productivity such as spouses, kids, pets, garden chores and the like.

As the saying goes, sleep eight hours, work eight hours and make sure it’s not the same eight hours! That leaves you another eight hours in the bank. Bonus once more.

Decide how much you wish to make in commissions this year.

Divide that amount by the number of actual days you intend to invest in generating that income. This will give you the amount of income you need to drive each day you work.

Divide how much you wish to make by the average commission you generate per booking and then you will know the number of bookings you need to generate too. Divide this number by the time you intend to work to get the per day booking goal.

With this information in front of you, every day you work, should generate the return you need, allowing you time to deliver the value your clients demand from you.

Remember time is a raw product. You cannot get it back if you waste it. 

Being opportunity-minded and sales focused is a habit you need to slip into.

It’s simply a matter of sifting through all that ‘stuff’ to find the opportunity.

If you follow my articles in CT magazine, and read my Friday Five at TTI you’ll know that I focus on how to turn what you see & sense into new found selling opportunities. So just to look at this graphic on the left, take a look now and make a mental note of what you see that could jog an idea.

Here’s my list: Air travel LGBT groups School groups Sports tourism Musical tours Medical conferences And there’s a few more too, but you can see how quickly new ideas can be formed by what you are looking at.

When you think about all the “stuff” that’s out there on the Internet and coming in your direction, as well as to your clients, it is mind boggling to say the least, let alone deciding which and what to sell and how to market it.

The concept of YES, NO, MAYBE is that stage when we tend to seize up, stop, and in an undecided state of mind, miss an opportunity. A YES mode keeps us opportunity-minded and prepped for a sale. So here’s the mission: work on it yourself and with your agency team if you have one and decipher who suffers from the YES, NO, MAYBE condition and coach them out of it into YES mode.

Deciphering written words means you’ll be creating an image in your mind unless you are good at turning data into instant imagery.

So, images, words, text, video and a combination of all… usually, somewhere in ‘there’ is at least one opportunity waiting to be discovered.

So to answer the question How Much Is Too Much? – well, in my book and I hope yours, there’s never enough stuff.

As long as you can sift through it as mentioned to find the nugget then you can dive right in to the everyday flow of information and pull out a few winners.

Go for it is what I say! 

Well yes, it sounds like too much information, but it really isn’t. It’s information you need to know and then you can sell your clients those gorgeous rooms with a view and generate superior commissions too. Let’s explore how: Do you know your client’s hotel preferences? If not, now’s the time to ask.

You may wish to check the travel history of your best clients followed by the next level of client and ascertain the class of hotel they requested.

What they want to know is what’s the latest feature, how big is the swimming pool, how does this spa differ from that one… in other words they want the low down on the feature itself. They are well aware of the benefits of a larger pool for instance.

It’s a quick trip from where they stayed before to the new, upgraded version, you are going of offer them.

Tell It Like It Is… If you are new to selling travel then you may be a little leery of telling a client that the room you are planning to book for them will cost $300 a night. On the other hand you could go up a notch and book the $700 a night room.

We Only Sleep There…

How many times have you heard this comment when clients are asking you to book a hotel that’s “not expensive”? What they are referring to of course is that during the day they’ll be out and about, returning to their hotel room to shower and sleep.

That may be how it seems, but in real life when travelling, that room should be an oasis away from the noise, the hustle and bustle, the scams, the traffic, the shops, the fumes… and without mold or bugs. You can’t get all that for twenty bucks.

Sell That Feature First Many sales courses tell you to sell the benefits and that’s okay however welltravelled people already know the benefits of the hotel features.

Naturally, where your clients will be sleeping tonight and who with, depends on how well you have qualified them. If you have misjudged them and offered a lower class room to a high end client then they will walk.

So it’s very important to know about their sleeping habits and you can use the slogan above if you wish to conduct a survey. It is tongue in cheek of course and you would phrase it as: Who are YOU sleeping with tonight? Take the survey: So many rooms, so many nights. So much to offer when you know your clients sleeping arrangements. 

A NICHE YOU MIGHT LIKE

Stamps? Postage stamps? Are they still used? Does anyone care? Well I do for one and I’ve cared about stamps since my time in the post department at Horizon Holidays, Hanover Street, London, UK where I started my travel trade career. Back then I would collect the stamps from overseas mail, then go to an atlas on my break and check where that stamp came from. It’s how I learned geographic locations.

Our friend Ed, was staying with us and we had a ton of fun and on the last day we found out we both enjoyed stamp collecting. I’ve known Ed for 38 years – and never knew. Amazing eh?

Well, our Ed and his partner Nora were planning to downsize all their stuff and on their last day with us he said his stamp collection was mine when he died. Ten days after that Ed died suddenly. My wife and I flew to Edmonton to attend Ed’s funeral and his partner Nora gave me the collection that Ed started in 1938. I haven’t put it down since.

In 2014, good pal Anthony Dalton, author of 14 books and the man behind the Rambles with Dalton column found in this magazine, gave me his father’s stamp collection – so now I’m fully stamped! So let me tell you why I’m so interested in stamps, why you should be and how you can profit from it.

The World of the Stamp Could Be Yours As I sit with my collection of stamps I have a magnifying glass over each stamp as I look at the detail, research it and look for a date it was issued or cancelled. When I do this I enter an entirely different world. It’s the world when 19th century travellers would write home. Send a postcard. Show off their skill with a quill and pen. I thought I should take a closer look at this bygone world of stamps and find out if there is a current niche market a travel agent could consider. Bingo!

Philatelists Are Everywhere If you choose to get into this niche market you’ll do it for a couple of reasons. One you have a passion for collecting or two, you see the link to a new source of travel revenue, or both. Every country has a collective along the lines of The Royal Philatelic Society of Canada (RPSC). Every country seems to hold stamp collecting related events and that means people travel to attend these shows to buy and sell and learn – here’s a couple: Stamp Fair and Philatelists Festival: Aix-enProvence, France. Held each February in the heart of Aix-en-Provence, the annual Stamp

Fair and Philatelists Festival is a must for all collectors. Attracting stamp collectors and vendors from all over the world. Click to: http://www.stampdir.com/ Marketing Your Tours for Stamp Collectors I suppose if you intend to chase this market you should first design and print your own postage stamp. Imagine that. Your own agency postage stamp. Easy done thanks to Canada Post. They have a link, right here https://www.picturepostage.ca/ for you to click to, upload your image and then click print. The post office will print and mail back your stamps.

Group Tour Ideas: Building a group of stamp collectors means you will probably have to work directly with the various associations and local chapters.

You can also go to a magazine rack and look for a stamp collecting magazine, then turn to the classifieds to research any existing tours.

Next visit the magazine’s website and look for their media kit.

Now here’s a few group tour ideas for you to think about: Stamp Museums; Stamp Collections; Themed Stamps; Stamp Imagery Locations; Post Offices of the World. Interestingly enough, many of today’s post offices are housed in ancient buildings that would be part of the touring agenda.

Working The Numbers If you belong to a group, franchise, consortium or home-based organization 100 agencies or more… you are guaranteed that any one of those agencies has at least one customer who collects stamps. So this is a group effort by you and your supporting members. Create your tour flyer and pitch to all your fellow agency owners and managers.

If 50% respond positively you have your first coach sold. Perhaps this type of tour should

remain high in cost and low in head count to say 15 passengers only. It should have an element of quality about it shouldn’t it. Your call.

Website & Window Stamp Okay… let’s use your agency window and website. Find an image of a stamp that is colourful or, go for the first stamp issued in the UK and the world - the one penny black.

Here’s the link. See image below too.

Use this image and large lettering in your agency window to attract attention. Use the same image on flyers and be sure your website shows the same promotion as your agency window.

Insert the image into your emails. Create the buzz you need. Before we close out, your philately education is waiting for you here.

There’s always a moment in my customer service workshops that I ask the question “What sets you apart from other travel agents?” - and quite naturally the response is based on the level of customer service they deliver.

Some attendees will focus on their pricing, and others their knowledge of travel and travelling and then there is the “Well I’ve been in the industry for thirty years!”

So if it is the level of customer service that sets you apart from the rest then my next question is this: “How many of you consider your customer service a product and market it as such?” And that’s when no hands go up.

Let’s move on. As I go about my business I am always pulled into customer service situations that we can all learn from. Here’s a recent batch and all from this week if you can believe it.

The In-Flight Non Announcement There seems to be a ‘speak as fast as you can’ theme amongst airlines that has the flight attendant delivering the safety announcement at break neck speed. I’ve deduced that they feel it makes them appear to be very professional, however the opposite is true. For sure, in an emergency, 80% of the passengers would not know what to do. If I’m having trouble understanding what is being said, what is happening in the mind of anyone who’s first language is not English? Simple. They tune out. They miss out on the very important safety information.

It was the same at the gate too. The gate agent, probably a cousin of the flight attendant, zipped zapped through her announcement so fast that passengers (you know, customers), where looking at each other wondering what she said. Some people with children in wheelchairs missed the call and had hassles working through the

general boarding line that jumped into place.

Not good. Not good at all. In fact airlines in general need a complete overhaul in this department.

On the return flight a flight attendant who called himself “Uncle Steve” led us through a cool, calm explanation that had me looking at the chart in the seat pocket. Honest. I gave him the response he desired because he was well spoken and easy to understand.

Where’s the service in the speed-chat?

Where’s the safety in the 1,000 words a minute delivery?

Customer Disturbing The Staff Chit Chat So I’m standing at the car rental counter in YEG. Going to a funeral of a long term friend.

Nice young man serves me. The others were sort of slouched on their arms on the counter… they eyed me but that was about all they could muster. So Josh was up. He was doing quite well. Clear eye contact, explaining things… as I started to sign the rental agreement he turned to his fellow employee who was loitering with nothing to do and started to talk about WWA! In the middle of my customer service he’s left me in the dust to talk about wrestling. So I put my hands up as if waving in an aircraft and said, “Focus! Here… focus right here and finish with me – he’s not paying you, I am!”

Well e-x-c-u-s-e me! Josh managed to stay up beat. I kidded him and we got through it.

He upgraded me. I thanked him. I was very polite and when we finished I said, “Okay, so now what happened at WWA, your buddy (still lingering) wants to know.” Without a word, Josh is back into his WWA conversation and I’m a dismissed customer.

We attended our friend’s funeral and dropped the car off. Went to the counter where I was asked: “Didn’t YOU see our kiosk in the parking area?” I suppose it could have been stated in this way: “Mr. Crowhurst, so that you know for next time you can save your self a trip here by completing your

rental return with our agent in the parking lot… it’s located close by our parking area… now, let me help you here, how was your trip…?” Sounds too much like customer service to me so perhaps we don’t warrant it.

How’s YOUR Service?

So what can we learn from all of this? I guess the main thing is that every area of service needs to be managed and checked and upgraded often. I mean service is a product and you wouldn’t want to sell an inferior product would you? Well out ‘there’ as I’ve related there seems to be a complete lack of service from the overall tourism infrastructure and even the very suppliers you sell. Let’s not join ‘em! Be and stay the agents of service that travel agents are known for.

Product Knowledge Training To make sure you match the level of service you promote you need to practice and practice again and again. Believe me, a wellchosen word or phrase will cement a client to your agency and keep them there. By phone, or email or face to face, being able to write or speak the words of service like they mean something is a major plus. Synch your words and phrases with service-oriented body language and genuine interest and you’ll have your client’s word-of-mouth marketing sending you more business. When a customer complains about the service they received enroute, take an interest. Dig for details. If you can correct something go for it even if it means advising the suppliers you booked they need to do better.

Do you have a Customer Service slogan?

Here’s a few customer service slogans you can use or work on to create your own. Remember that today you have so many tech-tools that your customer should be able to contact you anytime and from almost anywhere. You may wish to create an APP and start pushing that to your clients with the ‘tap the app’ slogan to help increase downloads. You also have Skype and FaceTime that’s just waiting to be built into your service program.

The Extra Mile is ALWAYS Factored into our Service Tap The App. Our Service Travels With You Click or Tap for our Service Concierge Always at your Service. Skype Anytime.

When customer service is working to capacity that means it has reached 100%. There is no 110% although the meaning of 110% means you have gone above and beyond, however that extra mile should be part of the job. It is built into the 100%. It’s what you do regardless. To claim 110% means you were only operating at 90%! Send me your customer service slogan for review. 

Sometimes it pays to watch and listen to the TV ads versus muting the sound and here’s why: some company execs have spent thousands of dollars having that TV ad created. Now certain ads may drive you nuts, but then sometimes there are nuggets that you can use. So go with the flow here has I turn that old SHAMWOW script into a script for a travel agency. Here goes:

“Hi it's Steve from SHAMWOW TRAVEL! You'll be saying WOW every time you book!

It's like a shawl, it's like a towel, it’s like a Snuggie. We wrap it around every client.

Regular service doesn't work that well, SHAMWOW SERVICE works day and night.

This is for you and all your travels. The Cruise. The Tour. The Adventure.

When you think about it, who wants standard service. Vince doesn’t want it. You wouldn’t want it.

SHAMWOW SERVICE holds 20 times MORE attraction than the standard service.

SHAMWOW SERVICE – originated from Japan. Made in Japan!

Why do you want to work twice as hard at being a good customer just to get standard service? That just doesn’t wash anymore does it? Nada!

You know the Japanese, they’re the best at understanding service and delivering service too. They can even wrap SHAMWOW SERVICE in SHAM WOW SERVICE whilst doing Origami at the same time!

Now we're gonna do this in real time, look at this, customer walks in to a SHAMWOW travel agency. A SHAMWOW smile right away... right there, you following me camera guy? That’s 50% of the greeting. The smile.

The greeting. The words. The knowledge.

See what I'm telling ya? SHAMWOW SERVICE works. You’ll be saying WOW! every time.

to the right country that is, have a great time and get back home as planned.

Go with a SHAM WOW SERVICE travel agency today. It’s comes with a life time warranty that the SHAM WOW agency will always be there for you!

SHAM WOW SERVICE is not available from any other travel agency than a SHAM WOW agency. Made in Japan. Now produced right here. Beware of SHAM WOW imitators, call 1-800 SHAMWOWTRAVEL NOW!”

Your Personal SHAMWOW Service Plan You’ll be saying I can't live without it, I just love it! Oh my gosh I don't even buy from any travel agency without it. If you're gonna travel, you'll be out of your mind not to travel with a SHAMWOW agency. All I can say is SHAMWOW SERVICE rocks! It cleans up!

You're gonna spend hundreds of dollars worth of your own time every time you try to book you’re travel online. You're throwin’ away your money! Sure you can dabble for everyday use but for those hard to get to places, choice and insider information – you gotta go with the SHAMWOW SERVICE. These last ten years, this last a week, I don't know it sells itself.

SHAMWOW SERVICE starts at around fiftybucks and that’s all in, job done. You want SHAMWOW WOW then you could be paying a hundred bucks, but hey… you’ll get there,

Check it out and see if you could deliver SHAMWOW SERVICE. It’s got energy. It’s got a buzz. How can you polish up your service to a SHAMWOW standard?

Is there any part of your meet and greet that could use an update? Anything on the product knowledge front you could upgrade?

Overall, how’s the team service level? Can you hand off a file? Will it be returned in good time and completed as it should be?

What about the entrance way – is it easy to get into your agency? Check the window – is the promotion current? Website – how is that looking? All of these things are part of your personal, team and agency wide SHAM WOW and SHAM WOW WOW service. It’s always worth polishing up your service isn’t it? 

Download the ISSUU app and read Selling Travel on your tablet.

When you need cutting edge, no fluff, how-to-do-it information, ideas, tips, tools & techniques‌ you can shop directly at The Travel Institute store

Mike Foster, President, Nexion Canada

W

elcome to the first chapter of The Travel Agency a new book being written by one of our industry’s most-respected business minds, Steve Crowhurst. Steve also has a terrific sense of humour and as an industry veteran at the centre of so much of the industry’s history; I trust that you will find his book to be a combination of history and humour.

As someone who has lived through the period that Steve is covering in his book, I look forward to reliving some of the highlights of the past 30 years in the industry, and perhaps even remember some of the suppressed lowlights!

No matter what your travel industry experiences may have been so far, one thing that I believe all readers may agree on is that it has been quite a ride, so do take the time each month to join Steve as he takes us back in time. For those readers who are newer in the industry, hopefully Steve will help you to understand how us veterans have turned out the way we have!

The Travel Agency will also help us all to reflect on the past with some perspective and I look forward to reading of the past to see how much it matches my own experiences. I am also curious to see how much Steve remembers!

Best of success to you Steve! I am so proud for Nexion Canada to have the opportunity to sponsor The Travel Agency. Enjoy this first chapter, and do be sure to return each month for the next installment as Steve brings us to the present day.

Mike Foster President Nexion Canada mfoster@nexioncanada.ca

THE TRAVEL AGENCY As Witnessed & Told By The End Wall

Steve Crowhurst

The Travel Agency is a tongue-in-cheek look at how one travel agency has survived over the years, from the mid-1970s to the present. It discusses daily situations that include external events such as bad weather, wars, or religious upheaval, plus internal events that include hiring & firing, instilling team work, sales and marketing, management, decisions: and it looks at client and supplier interactions. There's something for everyone in this novella. The newcomer will learn what makes a travel agency and travel agent successful; the veteran will chuckle at some of the "that's how we did it..." reminders, and everyone will get a boost from how the agency team participate in growing the agency through each decade.

The content, incidents and anecdotes are based on actual industry and world events and the fictitious characters, agents, suppliers and clients are pulled from the author’s and travel colleagues’ own careers. Enjoy what should be a humorous read as you journey with John Junior who takes over the family travel agency in 1975. John Junior enjoys the business his father built until every so often things start to go downhill; then John Junior must look to his own talents as the decades, clients, staff, suppliers, wars, storms and business come and go.

The story of The Travel Agency is told by The End Wall. The end wall has been with the agency since it was built and John Senior moved in to start the business. Walls do have ears and the end wall has heard it all.

Names and places are fictitious however the events are real, the dates are real, the decades are real, outcomes, the activities, the customers, the challenges all happened. Some embellishments have been made to make a point and some licence has been taken to rearrange certain events to maintain the flow of a moment in the life of The Travel Agency.

The Travel Agency Š 2015 Steve Crowhurst, SMP Training Co. All rights reserved. Printed in Canada. No part of this book may be used or reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise whatsoever without written permission or authorization through payment of a Permission to Copy fee (except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews) . For information please contact SMP Training Co. T: 1-250-738-0064. Protected by the Canadian Copyright Act.

Introduction I am The End Wall and over the years, I've witnessed it all!

John Junior was born in the back office of his dad's travel agency, as his mom, the bookkeeper, was about to reconcile Paper Towels, under Office Expenses. John Junior wanted out… he had things to learn, a travel career waiting for him and he was due to take over the business too. There was no time to waste!

Let me give you a heads-up. In May 1914 the world of travel was doing just fine thank you very much with the wealthy coming and going, cruising the world, taking off on safaris to shoot and stuff another trophy for their home, staying at world renowned hotels and spas and golfing on the best courses. There were bus tours, coach tours, rail journeys and people enjoying the outdoors hiking into the mountains to watch others fall off them and life was good. The working class were staying put mind you. Perhaps they were visiting local parks and the seaside or immigrating by ship to a better life. Then on June 28th 1914 the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were assassinated in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia & Herzegovina and that was that. WW1 was on. Travel was off.

The vacation business returned soon after the end of WW1 on November 11 th 1918 and the industry enjoyed close to twenty years of bookings before someone who shall not be mentioned by the name of Hitler, decided on Round 2. This time the war, WW2, was on for six years and travelling for pleasure was something you didn’t do in Europe, but in and around North America the coast was clear.

After World War 2 the world had changed once more and it took some years for it to right itself.

On 24 September 1946 two ex-air force pilots, started the beginnings of a major airline called Cathay Pacific. Many ex-air force pilots joined existing airlines that were planning for great times ahead. People in general rebuilt their lives, money was more available and the “vacation” became common place. Millions had died for freedom and freedom included going on vacation when and how you liked. But even then not everyone was free to do what they wanted. The Jews were looking for a place to live, black Americans still had a fight on their hands at home and many POWs returned to no home and no family. If you had the grit to overcome these huge obstacles and luck, chance and life favoured you, then you could make a go of it. Those who entered the travel industry generally never looked back.

For the working class who fought in WW2 a vacation would still be a drive to the park, a camping holiday or a visit to the beach. Then there were those who emigrated: travelling one way for a better life. Those with more money (or those who still had money) they were attracted to international destinations and they, once again, needed someone to talk to - someone to take care of their travel needs. That’s when travel agencies came back into their own.

Travel agencies had existed before. In fact, even in Roman times there were agents who procured accommodation and transportation through such entrepreneurial firms as Palanquins 4YOU, Coliseum Suites & Gladiator Adventures.

In the UK and since 1845, when Thomas Cook ran his first group excursion, Cook’s as it became known, was the main agency to deal with. From humble beginnings, Thomas Cook & Son grew into an empire. Across the Atlantic in North America the travel agency came to life through Ask Mr. Foster. Started by Ward G. Foster in St. Augustine, Florida in 1888, AMF eventually morphed into Carlson Wagonlit Travel. The partnering of Wells & Fargo in 1873 eventually changed its name and became American Express.

During the sixties and into the seventies there was money to be made. Naturally service was the highpoint. The ‘yes’ attitude took top billing. There was nothing that could not be arranged. You wanted your cabin on the SS France repainted, no problem. You’d like a pet rhino in your safari tent, no problem – (thinking: no problem for us, but for you? Good luck.) A sheik visiting New York wants the top three hotel floors to himself and entourage, no problem.

It was, as you’ll read, a time when business usually just walked in the door. It was a time when wealthy clients would almost, but not quite walk in the door, preferring to pop their head around the door and shout to the manager and no one else, “Henry! South Pacific, a month or so, you know what we like, November’s good.”

And with that simply wait for Henry to deliver and explain the tickets; then pay the invoice and tip him twenty-bucks for a job well done.

IATA, the International Air Transport Association and ATC, Airline Traffic Conference and a few other government bodies and groups soon ruled the world of air travel and whether or not a travel agency would be appointed. John Senior, owner of The Travel Agency had paid his dues.

For a couple of years he was buying his client’s tickets direct from the airlines by going to the airport until a local airline office was opened downtown. There he would, at times, notice people becoming agitated while waiting in line to be served. John Senior would introduce himself to them; hand over his business card, and tell them he’d take care of them. And so it was, whenever he went to purchase a ticket for a client, he returned with at least one new client.

During those years no commission was earned. Once he had produced $250,000 in airline sales in one year he could apply for his IATA license and retain commission. He survived on selling vacation packages to sun destinations that paid 10% to 15% and escorted tours that paid 10% and up, and customized arrangements then known as FITs: Foreign Independent Travel. It was the FIT that made him a lot of money. He would add $300 per head versus adding a ten percent markup. He was worth it.

FITs, in John Senior’s mind, were always the best way to sell travel, so he followed in the footsteps of his idols, Thomas and Mason Cook. But he, and others like him, had to know what they were doing. They had to know where to buy travel arrangements, how to deal directly with hotel managers, how to negotiate the best view, the best cabin, the best service and then piece the arrangements together so that everything ran like clockwork. John Senior taught his son that custom groups will never go out of style. It was the key to riches as long as you knew what you were doing and had developed the right contacts. And so let’s join the agency team…

Chapter One: From Start Up to 1979 Hi! I’m a wall. Yes that’s right, a wall. Bet you’ve never read a book by a wall before, but I’m not just any old wall, I’m the end wall of a travel agency and you know that old saying about “walls having ears” – all true. From where I stand I get to hear everything that goes on in this place. I even hear what goes on in the staff room behind me.

I’ve been here since the place was built and I was here to welcome John Powell when he moved in and put his sign up in 1946. It read very simply The Travel Agency. Old John wasn’t into fancy names as some of his competition were – calling their agencies Satin Sheet Travel and Your Happy Booker. He just wanted a potential customer to look at his sign and understand what he did for a living, what he sold and what they could purchase from him. His tag line however told the rest of the story: Bespoke Travel for the Discerning Traveller. Now you have to know that this tag line was created when most people with the money to travel knew what bespoke and discerning meant. His competitors were stating they were experts and specialists in worldwide travel and he often wondered how they knew so much.

I call our agency owner John Senior, or old John, to differentiate between him and his son, also named John. John Senior was born in 1907 served in WW2 handling logistics or something like that and in 1946 started The Travel Agency with his wife Margaret and they were in good company as travel industry titans to be were also finding their way.

Aldo Papone had joined Macy's in 1956, becoming president of American Express travel in 1975.

Edward J. Hennessy joined Cartan Travel Bureau in 1946 becoming president in 1974. The travel division of Performance Incentives Company was sending 50,000 people around the world each year. Ralph Bahna at age 30 became president of Cunard Line in 1973. Colin Marshall of British Airways fame started his career in 1951 as a cadet purser with Orient Steam Navigation Company rising to CEO of Avis in 1974 and CEO of British Airways in 1983. Ex RCAF and bush pilot Maxwell (Max) Ward started Wardair in 1950. Willis Balfor joined Capitol Airlines in 1950 as a reservations agent becoming VP in 1974 of Western Airlines. Freddie Laker started Laker Airways “no frills” Skytrain in 1977. Hundreds of men and women, now long forgotten had built the travel industry to this moment in time when John Junior was to take over from his father.

The Boeing engineer who, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that held ten people, confidently predicted “There will never be a bigger plane built!” on February 8, 1933, has never been heard of since.

In 1973 the era of seminars & trade shows was started by TravelAge publications and included sales training by John Dalton, cruise line and tour company executives who told you how to sell their products and the evenings ended with entertainment flown in from sun destinations and even cruise line entertainers were shipped in to entertain. A sit down multi-course meal with wine (both colours I might add) were always waiting for you and FAM trip giveaways ended the night.

This was a time when travel agents dressed their best to attend. Men actually wore suits and ties and women were looking fine! Dressed to kill and dressed to sell. Perfumed and quaffed to perfection – and that was just the guys! These were classy events, no doubt about it, and I heard all the stories and rumours – well, it was fun as well as business.

This was also a time when travel agents with empty fridges at home could eat like kings and queens. At certain months of the year, travel agents could save hundreds of dollars on groceries by attending product launches. What a life. Free food. Free drinks. Free entertainment. Free travel. Free brochures. Free loading. The only thing you had to do for your supper was sell something.

In the mid-70s travel agents were committed to gaining their Certified Travel Counsellor status and were proudly displaying their trade backed CTC certification on or above their desk and making sure their clients knew who they were dealing with. Travel agencies in the 1970s numbered around 16,000 in North America boasting a workforce of 70,000.

All those glorious, past and present come-fly-with-us airline commercials on TV and in print media, showing off their best looking Stewardesses prompted many young women to enter the travel industry and soon there was a proliferation of travel schools throughout the country. Some travel agencies offered travel industry training in a spare room at the back of their agency. There were so many ways to make a dollar in the travel trade. We didn’t jump on that band wagon because John Senior was focused and not wanting to divert his attention.

John Senior had passed on one specific adage to his son, one that he himself liked to live by and wanted to make sure son John Junior followed suit. The quote, which was framed and hanging on John Senior’s office wall, read: The Reader is the Leader.

John Senior told his son that to be well informed was one key to being and staying successful. He knew that very few travel agency managers, let alone their sales people, ever read more than the trade newspapers that came to their agency each week. They should have also been reading the New York Times each and every morning, tapping into the news of the day and listening to world news on the radio. John Junior learned how to do all this in twenty minutes following opening the agency, pouring a cup of coffee and then reading between the lines of local and world news.

This reading-between-the-lines technique that John Senior was such a master at, was simply a matter of training the eye to pick out keywords related to travel and destinations. If a country was mentioned in headline, or the text; if a city, a hotel, a disaster, etc., was noted, John Senior could pick it out, eyeball it, judge its importance and either jot it down or forget it. He would also tune into weather stations and know what was happening, and where. “The weather,” he had told his son, “can be your friend or your enemy. You just have to know what it is doing each day; everyday around the world.”

John Junior was reminded of his father’s words twenty years on in 1992 when an agency owner/manager colleague woke up the morning before his group of forty were to leave for Kauai only to find out that Category 4 hurricane Iniki had caused $2 billion in damage – including removing the lobby of the hotel where his group were to stay. He had just not paid attention to the weather.

Being well read and well informed also meant reading trade magazines to know what was being promoted and who had merged. He read consumer travel magazines to know what the consumer was being fed, and he subscribed to every travel agency owner’s dream magazine, National Geographic - publishing since 1888. At home and in the agency John Senior’s “collection” of National Geographics were a pain in the asphalt! They were everywhere. There were boxes of maps too. Piled up close together they made excellent side tables.

I can remember John Junior asking his father why he actually subscribed to NG. The answer was simple enough: “Millions of people, and that means thousands of people living around our agency, read National Geographic. So I read it to know what they have read and that gives me something to open up a conversation with and also to use in our marketing.” This was true, by the way, as many times John Senior would sketch an ad layout with the words: As seen in the latest issue of National Geographic. It was a clever tactic to indirectly associate the agency’s ad with the NG magazine.

John Junior followed his father’s The Reader is the Leader advice and made sure he purchased books like Travel Free and Travel’s Creative Future and Empires of the Sky when they were released. Eventually however his father’s NG collection had to go. Nobody wanted them as they too had just as many and also in very nice boxed sets arranged in year order. So to the trash they went. From that point on John Junior read his own NG magazine but trashed it when the next issue arrived. The maps he kept though and filed them away.

Old John was a stickler for detail and came from the school of dress smart, work smart, sell smart.

He always wore a suit, dark blue of course, and tie, usually red. Sometimes had a buttonhole flower and most definitely a pocket square. Not a floppy silky thing but a proper white handkerchief slipped in the top breast pocket with just one half inch showing. White shirt, French cuffs and cuff links, well-polished black brogues and a pure gold plated fountain pen and biro set.

He was always early. In at six o’clock every morning to do some filing, not really his job, but he wanted things to go where they should go and not filed away and lost forever. He knew that in this business product knowledge was another key to success and if you didn’t know it you had to know where to find it. Hence the importance he placed on filing away brochures, maps, schedules and general tourist propaganda. He also came in early as a benchmark for his staff.

John Senior did well. He opened and ran the business at a time when the business was very, very good. Industry veterans and present day travel agency owners remember those days as the time when business, as mentioned, just walked in the door - and it was true. The thing was, of course, old John also knew how to sell himself and convince the customer he was the best in town. He could close a sale too. I heard every word and it would start like this: a phone call, some small talk, a date and time was set because John was jammed with business, his calendar was full, but he could move Mrs. J… and the caller had an appointment (as I said, he could sell)… “… African safari you say, how nice… well, let’s see, it’s a very busy week… but I think I can move an appointment here and there, yes, actually I can see you tomorrow at 2pm in the afternoon… how’s that?” …and then come the day, old John would walk to the front door to greet his customer, small talk them on the way to his office and within thirty minutes or so he had a booking under deposit.

There was something else he did too - he always requested an extra one-hundred dollars should he need to communicate long distance on his client’s behalf. That hundred bucks times fifty clients padded the way each month.

Over the years, John Senior sold everything, but year by year - as his reputation grew - he started to focus only on long haul, deluxe and the very tricky complex bookings. His staff handled the generic day-to-day, run of the mill vacations and package holidays to Hawaii, Mexico, the Caribbean and other sun destinations. His clients grew and aged along with him and in the final years of his career it was fun to listen in on their conversations:

John: “Hi Harry… where are you going this time?”

Harry: “Time? Half-past three… am I too early?”

John: “What, to Early? Where’s that?”

And on it would go until finally one of them managed to break through to the other, stop the conversation and reboot as they now say.

The day finally arrived and John, old John handed the business over to his son, John Junior. Old John and his wife Margaret who had run the back end all those years and did the books, had also had enough and wanted to enjoy the business they had built. So that was that. They made good use of their travel trade connections and travelled for free most of the time, managed to get agent rates or free accommodation and sometimes even cruised and toured with their age old customers. They had a grand time and what a glorious way to leave the planet. Well-travelled, financially well off having earned ten percent or more on everything they sold (up to 25% on the custom groups he arranged), well connected and now with a son ready to take on the family business they were set. The eldest son George and their only daughter Tonya were not interested in running the agency. Twenty-nine years of selling travel had served John and Margaret well.

Now it was their son’s time to take it to the next level and they didn’t mean the next level down.

But times were changing.

It was 1975. John Junior was 28 years old and in his element. Recently single after an amicable divorce and no children. His ex-wife married an acquaintance of theirs, a local doctor and it did cross John Junior’s mind about the number of times his wife needed her prescription filled - but then it was best forgotten and there was travel to be sold.

Travel was John Junior’s life. He was literally born into the business. On that day, Margaret, his mother, had just one more line to total and then… well she never managed to total up because her son John was suddenly wanting out. He was born right there in the accounting office between Line Item 37, Office Expenses and Line Item 38, Paper Towels. Margaret had shrieked out. Old John came rushing in and rushed back out just as quick. He held onto the door frame, called for the eldest of this staff, Barbara, to come and help whilst he phoned for the ambulance. Everything worked out as it should and later in life young John forever more kept a large supply of paper towels close by. No one knew why but then owners can be strange birds from an employee’s point of view.

John Junior would see more changes in the travel trade than his father could ever have imagined, and I, the end wall, would be privy to so many uplifting and heart rendering discussions and decisions. By the mid-1970s, deregulation was beginning and the major air carriers flew 130 billion Revenue Passenger Miles (RPMs). After a decade of deregulation, in 1988 the number of domestic RPMs had reached 330 billion. Selling airline seats was the thing to do. It was the era of disco, new technology was on its way.

By 1975, John Junior had worked in his parent’s travel agency throughout his entire life. Starting off as VP Gurgling at Customers, he moved all the way up to VP F&B serving them a cup of coffee with cookies when he was a teenager and as the VP Logistics, from running errands, to handling

point-to-point bookings, to Chief Librarian - studying every single brochure from cover to cover as dictated by his father.

Reading the fine print was a must, and the reason John Senior insisted on it was that very few, if any, of the travel agents he knew, ever read or understood the fine print of the products they sold. That lack always caused them problems. Knowing the rules allowed you to say “No” with confidence when it was required.

After graduating high school, John Junior was given a gift of travel. That’s right. His parents arranged for him to fly to London, England and then hoped he would venture on to Europe and be back in three weeks. Well that didn’t happen. He was 18, it was 1965 and at that time there were young men and women driving old black London taxis, Morris Minors, Bedford vans and even London double-decker buses along the Hippie Trail, as it was known, to Kathmandu. About fourteen months later he returned with amazing stories to tell. Once he was back behind the desk selling, he could hold a client’s attention and talk them into almost any trip. They loved the fact that he had been “there” fulfilling one of his father’s beliefs: You had to go to know.

John Junior had no need of a brochure in his hand. At 28, John Junior could recite hotels, locations, climatic conditions, categories and price levels for most of what the agency sold. In addition to his fourteen month sojourn, he had also been taken on many low-to-no cost trips with his parents. And then, in his adult years, he was always on a FAM - as the staff read it. That wasn’t quite true, but then, well it just looked like it. Funny thing was, I often heard John Junior asking where his staff were and he thought they too were always away on a FAM. Hey, you had to go to know!

It was 1975 and although John Junior was now the boss and in his element the world didn’t recognise that at all. The world went on its merry way as countries, leaders and events took on a life of their own, not actually bothering to include John Junior. But then John Junior was charged with taking the family business to the next level and wasn’t aware of what would happen in 1975, let alone the ensuing years, or how events of the early seventies would affect him now and into the 1980s. The world could have sent a note once in a while, but didn’t. It was all up to him. Had he stared into a crystal ball, or spent a little more time reading business-like newspapers, or listened to or watched a little more news he would have known that the 1970’s would offer him and the world he sells, a few more challenges than expected. His father had always been wellinformed and able to turn a challenge into an opportunity, well most of the time, but John Junior had not quite learned that skill as well as he thought he had.

One thing he did learn, however, was humbling. No matter what you know in this business, there is always more to know and after that, even more. To be an expert takes a lifetime his father famously said and so he learned a lesson when a dark-skinned man walked in and in perfect English (well he was an Englishman so that could be why) asked about “Taking a ferry from Arij A’bor…” Young John, with all his travels around the Indian continent, had not heard of Arij A’bor and so excused himself for a moment and went to the back room to check the atlas. Checked the index, nothing! Ran his finger around the coast line. Wracked his brains, nothing! Finally claiming defeat, John Junior came out to say, “Sorry about that sir, where in India exactly is Arij A’bor?”

Well, what happened next was something John Junior would never forget and whenever he thought he knew a place, he would recall this moment and he would always check with the client first. So the Englishman fell off his chair laughing and couldn’t stop. Finally he righted himself and with tears in his eyes, speaking with clarity which, for a Brit, meant including the first letter and

the last letter of each word, said, “No, son. It’s not in India, it’s in Essex, Harwich Harbour I want to take the ferry to Holland from Harwich Harbour – maybe my Cockney accent put you off!”

The 1970s was alive and well also with a death or two here and there: Franco the Spanish dictator died, the price of crude oil increased by 10%, Margaret Thatcher was chosen to run the British Conservative Party, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was assassinated, the Vietnam War ended, the IRA bombed the London Hilton Hotel in Park Lane, Angola gained independence from Portugal, doctors in the US strike, causing hospitals to reduce services, the Suez Canal reopened for the first time since the Six-Day War. Unemployment in the US reaches 9.2% and the country went to a recession; then, civil war between Maronite Christians and Muslim militias in Lebanon began 15 years of strife, and Indira Gandhi, India’s Prime Minister, is found guilty of electoral corruption.

In South America, Suriname gained independence from the Netherlands. Further north, Patti Hearst was arrested for armed robbery and Jimmy Hoffa, ex Teamster’s Union boss, disappeared - never to be seen again.

Someone suggested the Mafia owned a travel agency and sent Jimmy on a one way ticket to Cuba. Others said it was an open jaw and others said they thought he was away looking into the concrete industry. None of those suggestions where true, but what was true was that the world had changed yet again, as it would change almost every year and most certainly each decade just as it had done for centuries past.

It didn’t escape him that when death and destruction occurred, travel insurance sales increased…

John Senior knew that being well-informed in this industry was tantamount to holding gold dust.

That knowledge was a currency, it was money in the bank. He knew, by studying world history and being on top of current events and climatic conditions, you had a better idea of how travel related opportunities might work out. It didn’t escape him that when death and destruction occurred, travel insurance sales increased and made sure John Junior understood this.  I can see someone at the front door. Key in the door, turning… ah, John Junior is here. What time is it? There you go, 8:30 a.m. In early just like his dad, John Senior, well, almost. He’s walking past six desks up front and heading to his office at the back. He’s made a few changes since he took over and has more changes to make. First things first – coffee.

As the coffee maker percolates he glanced up and saw the mess of brochures on the back table half stamped, boxes of brochures piled up some from last year, many out of date and a cork board that must have a thousand flyers pinned to it, or so it seems and what’s this, oh yeah, a whole bunch of new pages to be inserted in the APTCO Tariff and that’s a pain. But it had to be done or someone would be quoting the wrong airfare and then that would be a loss of commission. Can’t afford to have that happen. John Senior used to whip those pages into place before opening time, but that was then and this is now. “Someone will do it…” John Junior muttered to himself and reached for a Solo Cozy Cup holder, popped in a plastic cone cup, added a scoop of powdered milk, poured in coffee stirred it with dark brown plastic stir stick, took a sip, shuddered and headed for his office to start the day.

The door swings open and in comes Colleen. She’s an international travel agent, a senior travel agent. She’s 34 years old, a CTC, and very precise. Hasn’t actually travelled too much, other than cruising, and she’s up to eleven cruises now - just likes the thought of it, you know, being at sea.

Handling detail is what she likes at the office. Usually works all day without too much chitchat.

Gets the job done and goes home. Very efficient.

Following in Colleen’s footsteps through the front door is Barbara, 55 years old and trained by John’s father in his later years and still with the agency. She serves many of the agency’s older clients and delivers that personal touch that is still valued by the more senior clientele. This means her conversations go on for two-hours or more and there’s always a sharing of photographs from the most recent trip and the grandkids too. The sharing of trip photos is one way she stays on top of the latest developments around the world. She could read brochures but she prefers her client’s first hand recollections and then she has third party validations to relate.

As old John trained her, this makes for an excellent closing technique.

Hugh trundles in somewhere between 7am and just past opening time, 9am. The timing depends on how often he had to go to the bathroom during the night and if it’s an early morning call to the can, what the hell, he’s up anyway and might as well head to the office. He’s been with the agency so long he gets dusted every morning! Just kidding. He sits very close to me and so I can hear all the mutterings, poor ole fella. He’s 75 and still selling travel. Grumpy now. Some body parts not working as they use to and the occasional fart will be heard at the same time he coughs.

John Junior is not sure what to do with him. He’s not selling as much as he used to, he cannot send him on errands and for sure, when John brings in the new computers all hell will break loose at the back here. Then there’s the sleeping at the desk. It can happen. It does happen. That’s why he sits at the back where John Junior can pop a question to him to kindly wake him up. Dear old Hugh is a mine of information and often used as a walking filing cabinet.

Evelynn pushes open the door with a “Good morning everyone!” Always bright and cheerful no matter what. Hugh as expected responds with “What’s good about it?” and Evelynn just takes it in stride and pats him on the back as she walks past him to the staff room to hang up her coat.

Evelynn is Chinese, age 27 and joined the agency to help sell tours to China and the Far East in general based on the surge of interest the trade has experienced. No one asks what’s in her lunch today as they’ve had too many surprises in the past.

What time is it? Must be 9:05 a.m. or later and the reason I know that is very simple – young Ellie is bounding in late as usual. Ellie doesn’t quite get it that late is late. Start time is 9 a.m. anything after that is late. Actually, the handbook written by John Senior stated everyone in by 8:45 a.m. and ready to go by 8:59 a.m. It’s somewhere in the back room gathering dust but John Junior will be rewriting that handbook soon. Have no fear Ellie will have an excuse and they range from a standard excuse to a very intricate excuse, an “are you kidding me?” excuse and a lame excuse.

Let’s listen in and see why she’s late today: “Sorry guys, just couldn’t get up this morning, (WOW! An honest excuse!) - late night you know… had a great time though. Drank a ton of beer and wine and must have downed three plates of nachos! Everyone okay?”

Ellie is 19 and eager to travel the world and also very excited about the new computers that are arriving sometime this year. Disco is still pounding away at the night clubs and that’s where Ellie can be found Friday and Saturday night.

Ellie is pretty sharp. Good memory and keeps excellent time when the clock strikes 5 p.m. she’s up and out like a hound after a rabbit. “Home time!” is her usual battle cry as she runs out the door not bothering to ask anyone if they need help, something delivered, posted or what.

In addition to his five fulltime staff, John Junior also had nine other people working for him. Each of them classed as an OSR or Outside Sales Rep. One or two of the OSRs can find people to talk to, then tell them about the services of the travel agency they work for, and in some cases actually close the sale and bring a deposit cheque in to the office with the booking information. Then there’s the OSR who just loves to travel on the cheap. He makes the right motions so that it looks like he’s prospecting for business, but in actual fact he just attends trade show functions where he sells himself to the suppliers to get his name on their list for FAM trips.

That’s the team that I listened to each and every day, day in day out, except for Sundays.

Saturdays is not that busy but John Junior figures like his dad that “You never know son… a world cruise client could walk through the front door at any time on a Saturday. We have to be open.”

The fact of the matter was, no one ever walked in on a Saturday to book a world cruise. Ever. It wasn’t truly understood that world cruise clients didn’t really walk anywhere… you generally went to them.

John Junior, of course, has been in the travel industry for many years now, and he understands it. Beyond that, what he needed was management training. Not only how to manage others but also himself. He needed to learn how to hire the right team, fire those who were not producing and develop a sales and marketing plan that would establish The Travel Agency on a success strategy to carry the agency through and into the next decade and beyond. He did find one old training manual from his father’s era called, Assertive Training for New Managers and it offered this advice: WHEN MANAGERS

THEY ARE

YOUR STAFF ARE

Take a long time

Thorough

Slow

Want time off

Overworked

Going for an interview

Need a sick day

Very ill

Always off sick

Are out of the office

On business

Wandering around

Make a mistake

Only human

An idiot!

 Last year in 1974, aside from the resignation of US President Nixon, a few things happened that would set the future for travel to China. One such event was the discovery of the Terracotta Army near modern-day Xi'an in Shaanxi province. John Junior didn’t really take too much notice of the discovery although some of his staff talked about it as something to see “when the time comes.”

China was always in the news it seemed and some travel agents started to focus on it.

In this same year, 1975, a sporting first happened when Arthur Ashe created a sensation by becoming the first black man to win Wimbledon. For travel agencies dealing in sports tourism, this outcome was a marketing gift. Here was an opportunity to attract more black North Americans to travel to similar events when black athletes were participating. John Junior wasn’t

looking for this type of opportunity in 1975. His father had often warned him against stretching too far. There were some opportunities best left alone or you could wind up destitute, in debt and with five hundred tickets to the worst events.

The rest of the seventies would prove to be both exciting and a challenge – and like so many other people in small business John Junior didn’t notice the founding of a new company called Microsoft.

The 8 am staff meeting happens every Monday - it’s supposed to anyway. It did when old John ran the agency. I’m looking at the clock that hangs across from me and well wouldn’t ya know – 9:10am! This meeting is off to its usual dynamic self. Ellie hasn’t turned up yet, but that’s alright, nothing lost, nothing gained. John Junior just postponed the meeting on the grounds that there was nothing to discuss anyway. So it’s back to business for everyone. But John Junior is making some notes and mumbling to himself. He looks up and well, look at that, 9:15 am and everyone is in, even Ellie, head down, tail up and the phones are ringing already and Colleen has a client at her desk too. Probably a good idea to cancel the staff meeting. Good management decision for sure.

Colleen welcomed her client, “Hi Mrs. Tailor, where to this time?” Yes, Mrs. Tailor was a long term client of the agency and Colleen had dealt with her for more than 6 years now. Mrs. Tailor is 61 and lost her husband, Ned, a year back. “Well Colleen, you know I’m not getting any younger and dear Ned always wanted us to go on a world cruise… so that’s it this time. Book me on a world cruise and find one with lots of young men!” She laughs at her own joke and causes everyone else in the agency to smile too. Colleen’s back straightened and she goes to work… a world cruise. Not many of those come along in any travel agent’s career, so this is one for the books. “Right you are Mrs. Tailor – here’s what I need to know from you and then I can make a couple of recommendations in terms of which ship, the itinerary and pricing…” and with that Colleen was on her way to selling her first ever fifteen-thousand dollar world cruise. It was an inside cabin and a few decks down but that was fine with Mrs. T. It’s what she could afford and besides, it was the journey she was after and she would make sure she was topside most of the time. As she told Colleen she will look out to sea as if sharing the experience with her late husband.

Colleen always referred back to that comment in her own mind and sold a lot of travel not so much trying to sell the highest category but selling a well-priced vacation that a client could afford and then share with others upon return. Her referrals increased tremendously.

Ellie came into John Junior’s office and said, “There’s a call on line one for you…” John Junior looked up and said, “Who is it?” Ellie shrugged and walked back to her desk. She does this all the time and John Junior does nothing about it, just asks who it is. As always, he picked up the phone and said, “John speaking, how may I help you?”

The photocopier salesman was good. Kept John Junior on the phone for thirty minutes and in the meantime, an old client had walked in, looked to the back office and then walked out. He had seen John on what must be a very important call as John had his head in hand and shaking it at the same time. John’s client mentioned to Colleen he’d come back later. The photocopier was delivered as promised two days later for a test drive, as the salesman suggested. Well at least John could get free photocopying for the one week the machine would be in his agency. The trouble was, the machine was huge. It did everything but make coffee. Where to put it? Well they

decided to put it in John Junior’s office where everyone went to photocopy. The noise drove John Junior nuts but he kept quiet and on day seven advised the salesman he didn’t want it.

The mailman come in as usual, walked all the way to the back and placed the mail on top of John’s desk. “Thanks postie!” John said and picked it up to sort through it. Bills to the left, brochures and flyers in the middle, trade magazines and newspapers to the right. The trade magazines and newspapers went to the staff room just behind me and were placed on top of the others that no one had had time to read yet. The brochures were quickly browsed to see if there was anything new and exciting… nope, same old stuff. So to the bills then. Another quick look and then into the tray marked accounting for Mrs. H to pick up and do the books. John Junior was a travel agent not an accountant or bookkeeper and so he only bothered about the profit or loss statement each month end. In between, his job was to sell travel and if possible manage the agency too.

He noticed a flyer promoting a free FAM and thought it would suit Hugh so he called him in, “Hey Hugh… got a minute?” Hugh was between mid-nodding off and planning to get a coffee, so the reply came out as a fuzzy “Huh?” followed by, “Sure…” and he walked into John’s office and sat down. “What’s up boss?”

John was very pleased to show Hugh the free FAM flyer and suggested it would be good for him to reconnect with Hawaii once more. Hugh hadn’t been there for a few years and the agency sold a lot Hawaiian packages and FITs. Hugh was always happy with anything that got him out of the agency and away from his desk, so he agreed to go.

You should have heard him when he came back. He more or less staggered into John’s office and said, “No more FAMS for me boss. We did 30 hotels in the four days, every evening taken up with a promotional event. The agents I was with went drinking and dancing late into the morning and I’m so tired I could sleep for a week!” And that was the end of Hugh’s FAM trips. Well not entirely.

When a decent FAM (which meant no work involved) came around and perhaps cost a few dollars to attend, Hugh paid for it himself and took off. Hugh staggered back to his own desk and lit up a cigarette to have with his coffee. He leaned back in his creaky chair with the scuffed arms and blew a long stream of smoke into the air. This trip confirmed he didn’t like working FAM trips nor the new breed of travel agents for that matter.

Mrs. H came to the agency one week after month end as usual to review the books with John Junior. She didn’t look happy. It was the first week of July, 1976 and the agency was losing money.

I can remember it now, “Losing money?” John Junior said, “How can we be losing money?” The reply was short and sweet, “You’re spending more than you’re making I’d say! ‘Bout time you got busy training up your team or replacing them as I see it. You’re losing ground, losing market share, clients are migrating to other agencies and only old Hugh sells travel insurance and he’s hardly closing any sales now.”

Dear John Junior’s mouth hung open. Not sure what to say. He was scared to tell the staff they needed to do better, he wasn’t sure how to train them, and where would he find a new team even if he did fire one or two of his present team? Besides they would walk to other agencies in town and he’d lose more business. “I don’t know Mrs. H… not sure what to do really…” is all John Junior could manage. I have to say he did look somewhat crestfallen. He liked things better when he didn’t have to confront anything or anyone. Conflict wasn’t a place he liked to visit.

Mrs. H wasn’t done and didn’t suffer ‘poor me’ situations. She was old school like John Senior and if it wasn’t working you took a breath and fixed it, taking your lumps either way. From her reading of the travel trade papers which she liked to do, she mentioned the ABC organization that was coming to town to promote a franchise system and attract franchisees. They offered a terrific hotel program she had read not really knowing what that meant. She mentioned this to John Junior who had also caught the heading whilst reading between the lines. “What, pay fees to a group of people who know nothing about travel!” And that was that. Mrs. H hadn’t the heart to inform John Junior about the 15% the ABC agencies made on many of their sales, or the overrides on air sales, too. She had figured that even with paying the fees they would make a healthy profit on the overrides alone. But it wasn’t her company and felt that John Junior had to make his own way in the world, just like his father.

As it turned out, it was a good decision not to join the franchise at that time. There were all sorts of travel trade regulations about not being able to share or split commissions, and agency owners did not want to lose their agency name to a brand name – indeed after years of hard work - they wanted their own name above the agency door. In the next decade however the franchise system for travel agencies would be one of the best decisions for both newcomers and veteran agencies for those who could follow a system. That was the key to franchise success. You had to use the system you paid for. Of course neither Mrs. H nor John Junior could foretell the future and the last half of the 70’s where going to cause the world in general and the world of travel a few additional headaches.

To survive as John Senior had instructed, a travel agency owner would need to be very astute and be able to grasp at those brief opportunities when they came past. For many, survival meant having lived through similar events and situations and from experience knowing what to do and more importantly how to do it. This was an edge that veteran travel agents had over competitors new to the industry and it still holds true today.  And so it was that in 1976 the Ebola virus hit the Sudan and Zaire causing panic and cancellations to most parts of Africa. The Tangshan earthquake in China killed 240,000 people and travel to some areas of that country were cancelled or stalled. In amongst these horrific events there was always a ray of sunshine and that’s what travel professionals like John’s father always looked for.

The Montreal Olympics where doing well and the agency team, along with the rest of the world, where talking about young Nadia Elena Comaneci from Romania who had a perfect score in gymnastics. Some travel agencies quickly took advantage of the media coverage and started to arrange tours to Romania and others focused on Eastern European tours.

Even more events were to challenge the world and offer opportunities, too. When Elvis died in 1977, well the entire world seemed to stop. Some agencies were shedding tears whilst others were planning their tours to pay respects to their idol. If they could have looked to the future they would have seen that the idea of selling tours to visit Elvis’s grave was a guaranteed money maker – with eventual numbers reaching 600,000 people a year. Later on in October 1987 a company called Grave Line Tours opened the doors to its hearse, known as The Tomb Buggy, and took tourists on a $25 ride around town pointing out where stars and celeb’s were buried. And there it was. Tomb Tourism was taking off and only offered when a client wanted something cheap and tacky. Although John Junior was not into dead celebs he did make a note that tombs

of prominent people, authors, politicians, poets, artists, theatrical stars etc., whose graves were literally spread around the world were interesting to many people. He guessed that a custom FIT tour to the graves of well-known artists would probably attract a wealthy clientele. He was right.

In 1978, events triggered stay-at-home tourism, a sense of sci-fi joy, jobs in the oil patch and a boost to faith-based travel. The absurdity of events is never lost on the travel trade as the miniseries Roots stirred up emotions across America and around the world; Star Wars the movie is released and it’s a money maker; anti-apartheid is happening in South Africa and the leader of the movement Steve Biko is murdered; money flows when the Trans-Alaska Pipeline is finished and a new religious icon in the form of Pope John Paul II grows to idol status for many.

Looking back, I have to say that John Junior, although not a religious man, did see the opportunity that was ignited by the new Pope and worked with his suppliers to build a religious tour program that still runs today. One opportunity he quickly latched onto was the Passion Play, at Oberammergau. As it was held every ten years and 1980 was looming fast he decided to seize the day and booked in advance - securing 100 seats holding them under a $50 deposit he paid in advance. His $5,000 investment paid off handsomely less than two years down the road.

I saw how he marketed this program. He delicately focused on the ‘every ten years’ statement, meaning you should see it now, because you may not be alive for the next date in 1990. It was low key, it was sensitive and it created urgency amongst the faithful.

Mrs. H congratulated John Junior on his foresight and hoped the boost would help generate more creativity in her boss. He had by now put old Hugh out to pasture as a part time, outside referral agent. It was a kind way to say goodbye and Hugh had saved enough over the years plus he had a small pension coming in. There was nothing, of course, from the agency as that wasn’t the way it worked for a small business like ours. No pension, no dental, no medical.

In 1979 another event would rock the world and that was when Ayatollah Khomeini returned as leader of Iran and then Iran took American hostages in Tehran. The entire Middle East became suspect to North American tourists who stayed home and the world waited to see how this would play out. It took a long time to reach the climax that it did. Margaret Thatcher became the first woman Prime Minister of Great Britain and that was a coup for all women. For the travel agencies selling corporate travel, many started to focus on a more feminine approach to their marketing and travel products.

The daughter of former Hollywood star Danny Kaye, Dena Kaye wrote the book The Traveling Woman and published it in 1980. It was a hit. The actual title was: The Traveling Woman – An Indispensable Guide to the Pleasures and Perils of Traveling Alone, With Husbands, Friends, Lovers, Kids, for Business, Enlightenment, Sheer Joy, Etc. The word “Lovers” helped the sales!

More women made the news when Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and so it was that some agencies got involved with Voluntourism and establishing groups to help out where Mother Teresa needed support.

John Junior talked to his staff and they thought women-only travel would take off so he created a “division” called Woman’s World Travel and tested it with ads in the local paper. It was a good try but ahead it’s time. He’d have to wait another 15 years before women-only travel became a prominent niche and it wasn’t until the early 2000s that major hotels created women only floors.

The 1970s more or less ended with a bang and that was caused by the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island and then on one final note, a musical one, Sony introduced the Walkman. John Junior who was of the age and liked technology. He recognised the Sony Walkman as a great invention.

He even managed to do a deal with Sony to sell the Sony Walkman from his agency.

John Junior saw that anything small and portable was what a traveller wanted, whether they knew it or not. He came up with Walking With Walkman tours of the UK… where a guided tour was recorded on a cassette tape and formed part of the package. He’d done his research and found out that Acoustiguide has started such a business in 1957 and recently adapted their cassettes to fit the Sony Walkman. He offered a free cassette tape when a client booked on this walking tours.

By the end of 1979 John Junior and his team were ready to take on the 1980’s. He had made a bit of money and decided to overhaul the inside of the agency. Painting it a nice off white and instead of framing posters he used real photographs that he and the staff had taken themselves.

The photographs were enlarged to 16” x 20” then laminated on card which was glued on to hardwood. The edges of the wooden plaques where painted black and the finished “works of art” hung on the agency walls, including me! I had a nice picture of a Mexican sunset hanging on me and the majority of clients who visited the agency looked at the setting sun, then sighed. You could watch them and listen to them dreaming.

This was a great idea, for when a potential customer, new to the agency, walked in they were always amazed by the images displayed on our walls and often asked where the images were taken and who took it. From there on, the ice was broken and the selling started. John Senior who was always looking for conversation starters would have been proud of his son. From that moment on, our walls always featured photographs taken by the agency team. Posters were used only for client events and giveaways.

When John was asked about the sunset image he happily told them it was shot in Acapulco and that he took it. He also learned that a sunset is one image that always seemed to put people in the mood to get away from work and home and go travelling.

The year clicked on to 1980. Old Hugh had died. John Junior hired Shelly a bright 23 year old who had taken off on her own to travel South East Asia, Kathmandu and similar places. She had so many stories to tell, and John Junior loved them all. To end 1979 and the decade the agency team had a great office party and went disco dancing after. By the end of the evening John had danced so much his shoes turned white. One man amongst five women. He swore to hire more men. Not to dance with you understand but to share the dancing. Everyone was looking forward to the New Year and what the next decade, the 1980s would bring.

NEXT ISSUE – THE TRAVEL AGENCY ENTERS THE 1980S… Read Selling Travel in May for another sample chapter and find out how John Junior overcomes the loss of industry friends to AIDS and how it spurs him on to achieve more in his own life, how he learned to sell corporate travel, streamlined his outside sales force, investigated the franchise opportunity, made money when Charles & Diana married, hitchhiked on the hit 1985 hit single “We Are The World”, booked clients to witness the falling of the Berlin Wall and lost sales to China after Tiananmen Square. He also learned to Get Down, Shake His Booty and Feel Like Dancing – the 80’s arrived and he was ready to rock’n’roll!

The author in 1973 working for Thomas Cook. Piles of tariffs behind him. Selectric typewriters. Dial phones. Telex machines. Validation machines. Airlines plates.

Wooden desks and wooden chairs.

The only mobile phone available was the dial phone you unplugged and moved to another desk!

The story of The Travel Agency continues as a column in Selling Travel e-Magazine so come back each month to catch up.

Anthony Dalton, FRGS, FRCGS

Rapid Descent: Canoeing Canada's Hayes River

M

y ears are tuned to the sounds of the river: the dull roar of white water cascading over rocks. Our three canoes huddle together in an eddy, out of the main stream. It's raining lightly. Mark stands in the stern of our canoe, supporting himself by moving his paddle lazily in the slowly moving pool.

"We could do it," he says.

Rob, standing in an adjacent canoe looks doubtful. "I think we'll take the left channel," he says, resuming his position.

"What do you think, Tony?" The expression on Mark's face tells it all. He wants to run this rapid and, as I'm his partner in the bow, I get to vote too. It's hard to ignore the wistful boyish grin.

"Okay, Mark," I'm sure there's a note of resignation in my voice, "if you want to try it - let's go."

I know this will be a rough ride - a wet ride. I tighten the chinstrap on my crash helmet and dip my blade in the water. "Alright. Let's do it."

This is the fifth day of a two-week wilderness canoe journey on Canada's historic Hayes River. Once the main thoroughfare for canoes and York boats carrying bales of furs from the interior to York Factory, on Hudson Bay, for the Hudson's Bay Company, the Hayes River today is rarely travelled. Back in the 19th century, each summer this river echoed with the shouts of tripmen racing down rapids; hand-lining up the rapids. The shouts on this day will come from me, and from Mark.

We dig our paddles deep, urging the long red canoe upstream about fifty metres, so we can set the line we want to follow for our planned route over the rapids. At Mark's command we ferry left and turn through 180

degrees. We are now one with the current, yet we must go faster.

From shore a canoe racing over rapids gives the impression of immense speed. On board, moving marginally faster than the current, our descent begins as if we are in slow motion. The lip of the drop, where snarling water washes smooth boulders clean, is shrouded in mist. I disappear into the miasma, leaving Mark no choice but to follow. The current changes our pattern of travel: it's no longer in slow motion. At full speed the canoe leaps over the rocks, nose first into a standing wave of icy history.

Instinctively I shout, "Oh, ---!" The expletive out before my lips are sealed by an avalanche of river pouring over my head, into face, flooding the canoe. We break through, skidding right then left, searching for calmer water. Without floatation bags fore and aft, we'd be sinking by now. Loaded to the gunwales with our equipment and a full cargo of river, we ferry right, across the current, to the safety of an eddy and a convenient rock. Mark is jubilant, so am I. We're also soaked right through.

The Hayes River stretches 610 kilometres across the Province of Manitoba. It is one of the few untouched major rivers in Canada.

There are no hydroelectric dams, only two settlements along its route. A few years ago I journeyed along the first part of the river, from Norway House to Oxford House, with twelve strong Cree tripmen in a traditionalstyle York boat. We dragged it over beaver dams, manhandled it a couple of kilometers through a burned out forest, sailed across lakes, some peaceful - some windy, and raced her down rocky defiles. That experience convinced me to see the rest of the river.

Rob Currie and Mark Loewen, both biologists, are licensed canoe/river guides.

They are partners with their mentor, Bruno Rosenberg, in Wilderness Spirit Adventures, based in Winnipeg. In company with three

others: two more biologists, Val and Herbert, and Barbara - another writer, we will run the 380 kilometres from Oxford House to York Factory, come rain or shine, fair winds or foul.

We've already had our share of rain and high winds. Crossing Knee Lake we fought an unpleasant chop of over half a metre, for a few hours, while being blinded by rain.

Fortunately, when the rain stops, the huge Manitoban skies welcome us and saturate our tired muscles with life-giving heat from a benevolent summer sun.

There are 45 sets of rapids from start to finish on the Hayes. Most of these are on the second half, where we are. The longest section, where we are now, is a non-stop watery stairway past Brassey Hill. Rapid follows rapid in quick succession. Their names evoke the strong ties this river has with the Cree nation - unpronounceable name such as: Neesootakuskaywin and Apetowikossan. I can't help but wonder how heavy freight canoes and York boats were manouevred back up this determined river.

Overhead we are entertained by bald eagles performing aerial ballets, and ospreys screaming out of the sky to snatch unwary fish from the middle channel. On the banks Rob's sharp eyes picked out a small black bear on day one or two. Taking a break from torrential rain on a narrow strip of beach we find fresh wolf tracks. Later, once we are beyond reach of the rapids, Rob will find us another bear, a cub this time, running away from the approaching canoes in panic.

Descending the rapids we camp each night on smooth rocks with the roar of tomorrow's adrenaline rush in our ears. Each night I attempt to supplement our larder with fresh Northern pike. Voracious eaters, prepared to take anything remotely edible, they are not hard to catch. Most nights, for those who enjoy it, we have pike, occasionally a choice of pike or walleye.

When the rapids are too rough even for Mark's enthusiasm, we carefully lower our fragile craft down the safest route by the use of hand-lines. We follow, scrambling over rocks to keep the canoes from getting away from us. Inevitably one does and the two guides race in pursuit in another canoe.

After Whitemud Falls, known as 'the rock' to the tripmen of old, the river takes a break from its mad rush down off the Canadian Shield. This is the last of the rapids, although there will be a few swifts ahead. From here we could let the current do all the work. It's fast enough, about 9 or 10 kph, to carry us long distances each day. We have a deadline to meet however. A chartered plane is due to pick us up at York Factory in one week.

That fact doesn't stop us from being lazy occasionally. Holding the three canoes together we lay back and float for a few hours under a scorching sun, only bothering to paddle when a bend in the river threatens to put us ashore. The steep clay banks trap the sun and attempt to control the river's current. The river, imperturbable, carves its own passage as it follows its destiny.

At the confluence of the Hayes River and Fox River we camp on hard earth opposite Wachichakapasew, the Crane's Breast Cliff a sheer climb of about thirty metres. Once again wolf tracks cross the site.

Just before noon on our eleventh day on the Hayes, we join God's River. Now, with two busy flows combined, the Hayes widens.

Islands appear in mid-stream. The main banks drift far apart. With our paddles flashing in the sunlight we are joined by the Pennycutaway River and know that York Factory is only a day away - the end of our journey though history.

York Factory, once a small settlement with many wooden houses, is now administered

by Parks Canada. The main building is a museum of Hudson's Bay Company activities on the Hayes and on Hudson Bay which can

be clearly seen from upstairs windows. Close by a cemetery containing 161 identifiable graves, the latest of which - the final resting place of Albert Arthur Saunders - has a marker engraved in the Cree language.

Our final night on the river is spent on the north shore of Four Mile Island. We strip off and take a swim in the cold clear water, cleansing our bodies of two weeks of hard effort and revelling in our successful expedition. Tonight the heavens stage a

spectacular display of thunder and lightning to celebrate our arrival.

An hour after leaving the island we tie up to the jetty at York Factory. One by one we climb the rickety wooden staircase up the cliff. At the top, on a field of green grass with the stark white façade of York Factory in the background, we shake blistered hands and congratulate each other on our achievement. Š Anthony Dalton 2015. All Rights Reserved.

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After ascending Mt. Alishan on my 5th visit to Taiwan

Climbing the 99 stairs of Camel Peak in Hunan during a 2nd visit to China

Visiting the ancestor graves in Sulawesi on a 2nd visit to Indonesia

B

aseball icon Yogi Berra’s famous statement that “it’s like déjà-vu all over again” may not be as absurd as it seems, when taken in the context of travel. The phrase déjà vu is of French origin and means ‘already seen’. It’s mostly used to describe the sensation that an event or experience has been experienced in the past. When we refer to a ‘travel déjà-vu’, we are talking about deliberately returning to a destination, sometimes many times, to get more out of it than the visitor did in the past, and perhaps to subliminally roost at the destination; to be able to call it a home away from home, or in some cases, to create the opportunity to cast aside the ‘tourist’ persona and embrace a more ‘hanging out with the locals’, comfort zone.

With just under 200 countries in the world (and many more destinations to consider if you take into account, territories, possessions, dependencies and administrative regions etc), there is great opportunity to travel to new destinations every time a holiday appears on the horizon, but for many, this is just not realistic.

Double, triple, quadruple—and more—visits to the same country make perfect sense, however there are a few unwritten rules to follow.

1) Do whatever makes you happy.

Happiness is a mixture of contentment and value. If you return to the same destination for the 20th time and you repeat what you did previously each time (same hotel, same room, same restaurant, same ½ day excursion into town) –and you feel that your holiday time is satisfying, fulfilling and of value, then it is the perfect vacation for you.

Plain and simple.

2) But you might want to remain a bit openminded toward the possibility of alternate destinations that may offer a similar experience, with a bit of variety thrown in.

3) Or you may wish to set your sites on returning to a destination and exploring areas you have never been before. And let’s face it. You may see all there is to see at a destination in a one week period.

But the larger the country, or the more varied the attractions, the more time it will take to see it all.

4) Find the perfect balance between checking off as many of those 200 countries as you can, while at the same time, keeping the true spirit of your vacation in mind: Escape, adventure, relaxation, changing your routine, trying out new foods, learning about people and culture and history, indulging in your niche interests (antiquing? spoon collecting? wildlife observation?) and getting satisfaction and value from your pursuits.

Personally I’ve explored 72 individual countries but in addition, my total number of re-visits totals 57.

Some re-visits were business related, some for the pursuit of discovery, and some because I missed being in the country. The emotional attachment created by the initial visit was the magnet that drew me back. And while on a re-visit I

often choose to experience some of the same attractions, markets, restaurants, neighbourhoods and cities that I enjoyed previously, I always combine this with a deliberate plan to see and do something new.

In 1997 I visited Irian Jaya in Indonesia. On the return flight from Jayapura to Jakarta, we made a stop at the airport in Sulawesi, and upon seeing the tribal costumes and ceremonies of the locals, I knew I had to return someday. The opportunity came in 2006 when I travelled to Bali…so close to Sulawesi. We arranged a 4 day visit. It was so amazing…markets, festivals, different foods, and the friendliest people.

There are destinations that I’ve re-visited a lot. Japan is at the top of the list with 13 visits (so far), followed by Thailand (7), Taiwan and Jamaica (5 visits each), and then 3 visits each to Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, Hong Kong, South Korea and Turkey. And at each destination, there are the ‘comfort’ things I like to do—perhaps stay at a familiar hotel in which I had a positive experience in the past, or hang out at a favourite café to watch the world go by.

And then there is the ‘what else’. That indefinable aspect of discovering what makes the country tick, over and above what you’ve experienced in the past. It may be the rhythmic dancing, singing and drumming at the Callejon de Hamel in Havana, or sitting at a café on the Galata Bridge at sunset in Istanbul, or it may be a visit to the Imbaba Camel Market, just outside of Cairo and hanging out with the locals.

Japan is a great ‘re-visiting’ example. When I return, I have my ‘creature of habit’ routine. I love to stay at the Courtyard Marriott Hotel in Ginza, due to its great location—with easy walks to a number of attractions and the subway. I have my favourite Izakaya (Tsuzuku), my favourite standing sake bar (Gin in Shimbashi), my

favourite bookstore (Kinokunya in Shinjuku), and my favourite outdoor street market (Ameyoko in Ueno).

But I have also gone out of my way to experience new and exciting things on each of my 13 visits. In 2014, in Tokyo, we visited a sumo stable, attended a wax food-making workshop, participated in two sake tastings and wandered around neighbourhoods we’d never seen before.

And outside of Tokyo we explore new regions each year: 2014 (Hokuriku, Amanohashidate and Koyasan); 2013 Tohoku; 2012 Hokkaido; 2011 Okinawa; 2010 Shikoku etc. So each new visit satisfies our need to explore, learn, experience, taste and feel the country.

I visited Peru for the first time in 2003 when I signed up for an adventure that included a tour of Lima, a visit to the market in Pisac, rafting on Lake Titicaca, a wander around Cusco and a trek along the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. In 2012 I was invited to speak at a conference in Lima and I could think of nothing more exciting than returning. But we did it differently. While we returned to Machu Picchu, we wandered at our own pace, without a guide and really had time to absorb the ambiance, the mythology and the power of the site. And while we returned to Miraflores (a suburb of Lima) we ‘discovered’ the district of Barranco, found the most amazing restaurant at the Huaca Pucllana pyramid (still on my global top 10 list of restaurants), flew north to Chiclayo and Trujillo, visited the historic city of Chan Chan and ate fresh, tasty ceviche in Huanchaco. The next time I head to South America, I will inevitably choose a route that includes a stop in Peru.

Travel deja-vuing can be a very rewarding experience. Ignore the cynics who disparage the idea of returning to a destination over and over again. Travel is a liberating experience, geared wholly toward the

liberation of the individual who defines what constitutes ‘liberation” and pleasure, and satisfaction and value.

Then again, from a ‘Big Picture’ perspective, I still play one of my favourite albums, Déjà vu, by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, where the title song hauntingly ends with the lyrics “We have all been here before…we have all been here before…”

In other words, the very idea of travel can be considered a déjà vu. We’ve done the packing routine before, schlepped out to the airport, lined up to check our bags and for security, waited for the flight…arrived at the destination…hoped for a ‘good’ room at the hotel and then started to embrace the ‘I’m finally breaking free from my regular routine’ syndrome.

Déjà vu all over again? Hmmm…I kind of like that!

Steve Gillick, PRESIDENT, TALKING TRAVEL (and Mystery Active Ingredient in SteveGillickTravels) Travel Writer – Speaker – Destination Training – Photographer Publisher: Travel2Japan e-zines steve@talkingravel.ca www.talkingtravel.ca

Getting ready for the rhythm of the music and the drums and the dancing at Callejon de Hamel in Havana, Cuba on my 3rd visit.

Posted on Mar 17, 2015 and reprinted with kind permission by Drew Hendrix VP RedRiverPaper

For those of you who read that I’d lost and recovered 30,000 images a month or two ago, and who may have suffered a similar disaster here’s a nudge in the right direction. My thanks to Drew Hendrix for allowing me to reprint.

Today’s digital world is fraught with danger when it comes to protecting precious photos. They easily can be ruined even when we think they’re safe and securely stored on magnetic or optical drives, CDs and DVDs or somewhere up in the Cloud.

Digital disaster regularly befalls governmental agencies, educational institutions and companies big and small despite their best efforts to prevent it. It can also happen to you –and most likely will at some time– if you’re not careful.

Be aware: the future of your digital photos is in doubt warns Vinton Cerf, one of the Internet’s founders and a senior executive at Google. He says: “We are nonchalantly throwing all of our data into what could become an information black hole without realizing it. We digitize things because we think we will preserve them, but what we don’t understand is that unless we take other steps, those digital versions may not be any better, and may even be worse.”

Here some of the ways your photos can be lost: 1. The media (CDs, DVDs, magnetic disks, tape and other storage devices) on which your photos are stored can become unstable and deteriorate– sometimes within just a few years.

2. Hardware and software can become obsolete and new versions won’t work with old versions. Or they just plain quit or become so buggy they start to destroy data.

3. Migrating photos from old to new media can run into incompatibilities that prevent it from being transferred easily– such as not being able to find the required hardware, software, cables or interfaces. Copying from one media to another increases the chances of corruption and/or loss of data.

4. Photos stored on off-site computers may become the victims of viruses, fire, floods or other natural disasters. They may be hacked and your photos destroyed in the process. Or the company may go out of business making it impossible to retrieve your images.

5. Viruses may invade your personal computer system and render your photos unusable.

6. You (or your storage company) may erase valuable photos by mistake and they might not be able to be recovered or may require expensive software or services to do so.

7. Password protection, encryption, security devices, or other barriers to access may prevent retrieving your photos when operating systems change and/or expire.

Make prints of your favorite photos because every time you migrate them from one medium to another, you risk digital disaster.

In fact, just the simple task of transferring images from camera memory cards to your computer can be risky– which is why professional photographers never erase their cards before opening every image after they’ve been transferred to make sure none have been corrupted.

To avoid digital disasters, Vinton Cerf has a very simple solution: “If there are photos you really care about, print them out.”

Even if you could find hardware or software to read your photos on this antiquity, how would you transfer them to newer media?

You can then use a universal device that’s been available for years to view your photos in any format, at any time or any place without requiring a computer, software or media. Your eyes.

Eyes will never crash, corrupt photos, require upgrading (except maybe for glasses) or use vulnerable media. And they operate with maximum efficiency when viewing a photographic print.

Sure, photos fade, but at a snail’s pace compared to rapidly changing technology. If they begin to decline, just scan them or use a camera to copy them. They can then easily be reprinted– even if you don’t have the original digital file.

If, after reading this far, you’re still skeptical about the digital vulnerability of your photos, check out the Domesday Project– a multi-million dollar digital disaster in which 50,000 images (and reams of other data) became unreadable.

Fifteen years ago this was state of the art.

Today, millions of files cannot be read by it.

In 1986, this was state of the art. Today, the Domesday Project files that were created and stored on special discs cannot be read.

So don’t believe in digital stability and longevity; it’s a myth. Now’s the time to look through your image files and pick out your favorites– those that would devastate you if they were lost forever. Print them out, put them in albums, hang them on the wall or scatter them around the room on freestanding picture frames. Then rest assured they’ll be around for years to come.  Below is one image of my artwork I’d lost and recovered now printed on RedRiver’s 8.5” X 25” inkjet stock.

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