Page 19 - Entrepreneur-November 2018

Travel Industry

all the help they could get sort- Only 11 percent of today’s Agents pledge to be on hand to “We poured our souls into the
ing through itineraries, dining travelers use agents to book handle midtrip emergencies by contest,” he says.
options, and room choices. To their trips, according to a recent booking flights, cars, and hotels They shot off their applica-
win those customers, compa- report from ASTA, but the when necessary. An agent can tion in July 2017. In a typical
nies like Carnival and Royal industry sees many reasons make sure a traveler’s transpor- year, Dream Vacations receives
Caribbean continued offering for optimism. For complicated tation transfers link up properly, up to 300 submissions, so it
agent incentives. All of this bookings like cruises and tour and that their hotels are close was a few weeks before the
functionally reshaped the travel packages, agents still control to the landmarks they want to Moyneurs learned they were
agency industry as a whole. roughly two-thirds of the busi- visit. And for the most part, finalists. They called in for a
The old-time role of “agent” ness, according to the research commissions still come from phone interview, went back

began to morph into “adviser.” firm Phocuswright.And the the suppliers, so it’s essentially a to waiting, and at the end of
And once that happened, the travel industry is ever-growing; free service to customers—one September were told they’d
industry learned how to adapt according to analysis from industry survey even found that won—and that they were due
and rebuild. the World Travel and Tourism agents actually save travelers an for training in Fort Lauderdale.
Among the most critical Council, travel now accounts for average of $452 per trip. The Moyneurs dropped the
changes that followed: Agencies 10.4 percent of the global GDP. But that promise of conve- kids off with their grandpar-
stopped operating out of store- American baby boomers cur- nience is realized only if the ents, and over six days, they
fronts, and they very frequently rently take three trips per year, industry recruits passion- met with travel vendors, toured
stopped having employees. and millennials take nearly five. ate, motivated agents who cruise ships, set up the online
Businesses became solely “The economy has been strong can build large networks of profiles they’d use to recruit
owner- operated, run out of peo- for eight years,” Hershberger customers and deliver service business, and learned how to
ple’s homes. Between 1997 and
2013, the number of agencies
with multiple employees fell A TRAVEL AGENT IS GOING TO SAVE YOU TIME, ENERGY,
from nearly 23,000 to fewer
than 10,000, according to Skift, AND MONEY,” SAYS DREAM VACATIONS’ DREW DALY.
a travel-industry research firm. “THAT’S OUR BIGGEST HEADWIND: MAKING SURE THE
But the number of independent PUBLIC IS AWARE THAT WE’RE STILL AROUND.”
agents actually crept upward,
showing a 7 percent gain over
roughly the same period. Store-
fronts are now landing pages, says. “And traveling has become that warrants repeat business. use My Cruise Control, Dream
and agents rely on laptops and less expensive.” “I can’t make more money Vacations’ booking system.
smartphones to connect clients Perhaps the industry’s most if I don’t have people selling They also met other franchi-
to large networks of travel encouraging stat, however, travel,” says Hershberger. “So sees, whom they leaned on for
suppliers. hints at the growth poten- anything we can do to attract help. “We’re still in contact with
“It’s an incredible model,” tial. Of those who use agents quality people who are disci- them today,” Moyneur says. The
says Michelle Fee, a survivor today, 85 percent claim to be plined, we need to do it.” Moyneurs’ franchise was one
from the industry’s older days. satisfied or somewhat satisfied That’s why Dream Vacations of 219 that Dream Vacations
“People are making great with the service. “People are and its competitors actively added to its network last year.
money doing business out of coming back,” says Fee. “We recruit veterans as franchisees. This year, to cap off a 61 per-
a bedroom at home. You just have the tools and vendors to cent growth spurt that began
don’t need that overhead.” In get you dropped in at a rate you AFTER THE Moyneurs put four years ago, the company is
the early ’90s, she ran a brick- couldn’t find yourself, so our all their chips on Operation on track to sign 300 more.
and-mortar agency in Coral business has never been better.” Vetrepreneur, Nick found With this kind of growth,
Springs, Fla. But when she saw As it regains strength, the a mentor at the Veterans franchises are constantly
how the internet was chang- industry has also relied more Business Resource Center to searching for qualified new
ing the industry, she closed and more upon the promise of help him draft a business plan. franchisees—and that’s the
her storefront and pivoted to convenience. “A travel agent is They cut a three-minute video reason VetFran, the organi-
a model that would empower going to save you time, energy, with a photo montage—Nick zation that led Moyneur to
independent agents to run and money,” says Drew Daly, riding an elephant in Thailand, Dream Vacations’ contest, was
their own online businesses who oversees recruitment the family and kids meeting originally built. The program
from their homes. Today, with for Dream Vacations. “That’s Mickey at Disney World, and so was created in 1991 as the Inter-
more than 2,500 franchisees, probably our biggest headwind: on—with a voice-over declaring national Franchise Association
her company, Cruise Planners, making sure the public is aware their passion for travel and sought ways to attract soldiers
is the industry’s biggest travel that we’re still around and that boasting that the Moyneurs had who were coming home from
agency franchise. we have tremendous value.” collectively visited 24 countries. the Gulf War. “We had all these

90 / ENTREPRENEUR.COM / November 2018